BendBroadband’s Vault Successfully Passes SSAE 16 Audit

Posted on March 1, 2012 by

Bend, Oregon – March 1, 2012 – BendBroadband, a regional technology leader in broadband, data and communication services, is proud to announce that its LEED Gold, Tier III certified data center, The Vault, has passed the rigorous SSAE16 (Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagements No. 16) audit process without exception.

SSAE 16 is an internationally recognized third-party assurance audit for service providers awarded by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), which last year replaced SAS (Statement on Auditing Standards) No. 70 as the leading compliance initiative for service organizations.  The audit looked at the Vault’s processes, policies, procedures and operational activities and validated optimal performance standards regarding security, availability and operational integrity.

Leonard Weitman, BendBroadband’s Vice President of Technical Operations, takes this process very seriously.   “We recognize that by successfully passing the SSAE 16 audit our customers are assured of the effectiveness of the Vault’s data security and internal control systems.  Our superior reliability and security standards make the Vault a perfect colocation choice for industries such as Financial Services and Healthcare, which are highly regulated by HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) and Sarbanes-Oxley legislation.”

About BendBroadband Vault 

BendBroadband Vault is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BendBroadband, a family-owned company providing communications solutions and technology infrastructure in Central Oregon for more than 50 years.  The company has earned a reputation within the industry as an innovator and technology leader thanks to facilities and resources that include more than a thousand miles of fiber and coax infrastructure along with metropolitan optical Ethernet, T-1/PRI and hosted PBX services serving the business community.  The company designed and built its 30,000-square-foot datacenter with energy efficiency and sustainability in mind.  The Vault is the only colocation datacenter on the West Coast to earn the combination of LEED Gold certification and Tier lll certification.

The new data center provides premium colocation services, as well as managed services and the company will also provide a variety of professional services to customers needing network, server and storage design, business continuity/disaster recovery, virtualization and cloud computing infrastructure.  St. Charles Health System is an anchor tenant in the new facility. BendBroadband Vault has been through its initial annual SSAE 16 Type II-audit and is an HIPAA-compliant facility.

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Year-in-Review: A Look Back at the Vault’s First Year

Posted on December 19, 2011 by
Vault Ribbon Cutting

Vault Staff and Public at the Ribbon Cutting in June

It was quite a year for the BendBroadband Vault.  The facility was completed in late winter and officially opened its doors on April 1st amid a flurry of news coverage from IT and data center publications from around the world. Clients soon began moving in, among them St. Charles Medical Facility from our hometown of Bend.

From the get-go, the Vault was built to be an environmentally sustainable and green facility. In May, the organization furthered the cause by agreeing to purchase enough carbon offsets over the next four years to become a “carbon neutral” facility. This announcement added to the already existing green elements, including the Kyoto Cooling, photovoltaic (PV) solar panels, low-impact landscaping and Blue Sky renewable energy, among other items.

Tier III FacilityIn June, BendBroadband Vault received word that it had been awarded the Uptime Institute’s Tier III Certification of Constructed Facility. The announcement signified that the Vault met the criteria set forth by the original design and had adhered to it throughout the construction process.  This also marked the second certification for the Vault by the Uptime Institute, with the Tier III Design Certification being awarded in late March.

Throughout the year, the Vault proved it could live up to its claims for extreme energy efficiency, with the colocation facility operating at a Power Use Efficiency (PUE) of less than 1.2, a huge step below the 2.0 average of most data centers. Add that to an estimated 600kW lower energy consumption when compared to standard data centers and the Vault is proving that green tech is the wave of the future.

LEED Gold FoilFast forward to the fall and the Vault was able to add a few more awards to its trophy case. On October 13th, the Vault was presented with an Innovation Award by the Environmental Center of Bend as part of the 2011 Sustainability Awards.  Later in the month, the Vault was notified it had officially achieved LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold status under the LEED 2009 Building Design and Construction (LEED BD+C) rating system. This was a monumental achievement and one that we had been working toward since the initial concept stage of the facility. Achieving LEED Gold status put the Vault in the upper echelon of data centers and one of only five data centers in the world to attain this level.

The past year has definitely been a whirlwind, but one filled with proud accomplishments and great achievements. Several of the notable names behind the controls at the Vault agreed, and decided to share some of their proudest moments of the year below:

It’s been a very exciting year. I moved here in February from Dubai to manage the Vault. It’s so great to see the environment being used constructively as it is at the Vault through our Kyoto units. We achieved the much-coveted LEED Gold certification to go along with our Uptime Institute certifications – a very good year for achievements! – Steven Hall, Data Center Director

We opened on time, began moving customers in the next day, sustained uninterrupted service for the entire year, earned our Tier-III Facility certification, achieved LEED-Gold status, and have implemented processes and procedures that put us in position for a strong SSAE-16 Audit result. – Leonard Weitman, Vice President of Technical Operations

From all of us at the Vault, have a safe and happy holidays! See you next year.

Leonard Weitman, VP of Technical Operations

Leonard Weitman, VP of Technical Operations in the Data Hall

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Local Bend News Station Highlights the Vault

Posted on December 16, 2011 by

The BendBroadband Vault was highlighted on the local news station KTVZ on Wednesday. The news channel’s recurring segment “Green Life” featured the Vault and highlighted some of the aspects of the facility that make it one of the greenest data centers in the world.

Most notably, news anchor Adam Aaro highlighted the Vault’s Kyoto Cooling system and talked with Vice President of Technical Operations Leonard Weitman about the benefits of the energy efficient system. Aaro also pointed out that the facility is now LEED Gold certified by the United States Green Building Council.  Additionally, KTVZ highlighted the Vault’s 624 solar panels as well as the pervious pavement and the company’s usage of renewable energy through Pacific Power’s Blue Sky program.

Though we are not able to share the video directly here, users can view the video in its entirety on KTVZ.com’s web site by clicking on the image below.

Vault Segment on KTVZ

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Vault Staff Raffles iPad 2 from Trade Show Events

Posted on December 12, 2011 by

Vault Raffles iPad 2 from Trade ShowsIn the last six months, the BendBroadband Vault sales team has been busy, attending 7 different trade show events across the western half of the United States. The events kicked off early in September with the Boise Interface on the 8th. According to the web site, the Interface series is focused on “face-to-face interactions with technology professionals, industry-leading manufacturers, and regional value-added resellers.” Along with the Boise event, the Vault team also visited other locations in the Interface series, including in Denver (October 20th) and Seattle (December 1st).

The sales team also visited several vertical-specific trade shows, including the NW Medical Informatics event on September 19th and the NW Credit Union Association in Tacoma WA on the 20th. Rounding out the events were two Oregon-centric trade shows, the Oregon League of Cities (right here in the Vault’s hometown of Bend) and the CIO Forum in Portland, which was an invite-only event geared specifically toward CIOs and IT executives.

At each trade show, the Vault promoted a raffle for a 16gb iPad 2 that would occur in December. Well, that time has now come and out of all the attendees, I’m happy to say that we have a winner! So without making you hold your breath any longer, the winner is…

(Drum roll goes here)

Lane Rollins of Portland’s Boyd Coffee Company! Congratulations Lane and enjoy your iPad 2. A Vault representative will be in touch with you shortly with the details of your prize.

And on that note, we’d also like to thank everyone who sought us out at the trade shows, introduced themselves and talked data centers with us. The best thing about trade shows and events is meeting people in the industry so for that, thank you!

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Is Central Oregon the New ‘Boom Town’ for Data Centers?

Posted on December 8, 2011 by
Prineville, Oregon (Michelle Kinsey Bruns & used under the Creative Commons License)

Prineville, Oregon (Photo by Michelle Kinsey Bruns & used under the Creative Commons License)

News articles have sprung up like wildfire in the past few days about whether Apple is eying a location near Facebook’s new data center in Prineville, Oregon. According to Portland-based newspaper The Oregonian, Apple could be the fourth technology giant to saunter its way into the heartland of Oregon, following Google (based in The Dalles), Amazon (Umatilla) and Facebook.

According to sources, Apple is using a codename in the negotiations (in this case “Maverick”), which is a common practice among data centers in hopes of keeping a competitive advantage before committing to the build. Officials in Crook County, who are keeping mum about Maverick’s true identity, have given the company an option to buy 160 acres just a stone’s throw from the new Facebook facility opened earlier this year. The option expires at the end of December so Apple is expected to make a decision within the next few weeks.

What does this mean for the BendBroadband Vault? In one regard, it’s just further proof that Oregon, and in particular Central Oregon where the Vault is located, is a prime spot for data centers. Not only does the state offer spectacular tax incentives, but with the region’s mild climate, low power costs and nil-to-none risk of natural disasters, Oregon (along with North Carolina) has quickly become the hot spot for data center construction.

Along with the low risk of natural disasters, the Vault also possesses a number of other key factors in making it an ideal location to store your data. With multiple redundancies in place, the Vault guarantees a constant supply of clean power in support of our Tier-III Facility Certification. Our uninterruptible power supply (UPS) system is up to 98% energy efficient and uses flywheel technology, an alternative that poses no environmental hazards like the traditional battery operated UPS systems. Additionally, with our expert technical staff available 24/7/365, you can rest assured that your data will be safe.

Though writing about the Vault data center and the data centers of Apple may be like comparing, uh, apples to oranges, there are still a lot of key points to extract from news such as this. Because in the end, if housing a data center in Central Oregon is the right choice for so many of the giants in the technology industry, wouldn’t it be a smart choice for a company looking to colocate its data, as well?

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Vault Lands Cover Story on Mission Critical Magazine

Posted on November 18, 2011 by

Mission Critical Cover Story

Last month, the BendBroadband Vault was featured on the cover of the popular data center and energy solutions magazine, Mission Critical. The piece details in-depth the Vault’s numerous green and energy efficient features, as well as the facility’s focus on it’s power use efficiency ratio (PUE) and redundancy measures.

Additionally, Mission Critical highlighted one of the Vault’s client’s St. Charles Health System of Bend, who previously colocated their data and servers in Hillsboro, OR, before moving over to the Vault. According to the article, St. Charles has reduced its colocation power costs by as much as 30 percent, and they estimate that over a 5-year period, they will see a return on investment of roughly $7.1 million.

The following is an excerpt from the article, which is available to read for free on Mission Critical Magazine’s web site (though registration is required).

“Early on a June morning, the temperature hovers at 52 degrees in the high deserts of Central Oregon. Even though the daytime highs can soar to 104 degrees in summer months, the cold nights are key to the sustainable cooling system in the Vault—one of the only co-location data centers in the nation that is dedicated to sustainable energy use and has Tier III Constructed Facility certification.

BendBroadband, a leader in the cable and broadband sectors, created the 30,000-square-foot co-location data center. Besides pursuing LEED Gold and Energy Star industry certifications, the data center is located in a geographic area safe from most natural disasters (see sidebar). The Vault welcomed its first clients in April.”

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The Vault Achieves LEED Gold Status

Posted on October 28, 2011 by

LEED Gold EmblemLast week, we were notified that the BendBroadband Vault has officially achieved LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold status under the LEED 2009 Building Design and Construction (LEED BD+C) rating system. This is a monumental achievement and one that we have been working toward since the initial concept stage of the Vault. This certification puts us in the upper echelon of data centers and makes us only the 5th data center in the world to attain this level.

The LEED Gold certification is issued by the United States Green Building Council and is awarded to those facilities that implement practical and measurable green building design, construction, operations and maintenance solutions. Currently, data centers are one of the hardest types of building types to certify, making this accomplishment all the more special.

LEED Consultant Jill Sornson Kurtz agrees. “LEED was originally developed for corporate structures, primarily office buildings, so for a data center such as the Vault to undergo the same process and scrutiny – and to pass with flying colors – is no small feat,” she said. “The BendBroadband Vault project has raised the bar in energy efficiency and green building strategies for all data centers of the future.”

According to LEED, the Vault was recognized for its work in the following categories:

  • Sustainable sites (using alternative transportation, natural site development, effective stormwater management)
  • Water conservation & efficiency (water-efficient landscaping, water-efficient plumbing, water-efficient cooling systems)
  • Energy efficiency (optimization of energy performance, onsite renewable energy, green power and renewable energy)
  • Materials conservation & waste reduction (using recycled building materials, recycling of construction and demolition waste, using locally sourced materials and certified wood products)
  • Healthy indoor environmental quality (zero-or-low VOC (volatile organic compounds) building materials, proper indoor air quality (IAQ) management, green housekeeping policies)
  • Integrative project planning (use of cross-discipline design and decision making to maximize cost-effective adoption of green design and construction strategies)

You can read more about the LEED Gold certification and this great achievement at the Vault web site. Congratulations Vault!

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