DataChambers Ready for Hurricane Season, Expands Data Center Capabilities

July 15, 2005

The early arrival of hurricane season recently prompted Triad-based DataChambers, a disaster recovery and business continuity services company, to conduct extensive test runs on all its backup systems in order to verify the capabilities of its facility and servers. In addition, the company expanded its data center capabilities to include a new storage area network capable of archiving over 50,000 gigabytes of data.

The testing procedure, although done routinely on a monthly basis, was more in-depth this time due to hurricane season, with redundancy and fail-over plans evaluated for security and stability.

"Everything went according to plan. We are more confident than ever in the quality of our resources and facility," Chief Operations Officer Lawrence Boening said.

All Southeastern states are at risk for hurricanes, said Boening. "Small to medium-sized businesses, in particular, should ensure their data and records are backed up and protected. These companies are more at risk because computer systems tend to be outdated. They don't typically invest in data backup storage services." Boening said business continuity services, however, cost as little as seven dollars per day.

Hurricane Floyd crippled 60,000 businesses in North Carolina in 1999, resulting in 31,000 lost jobs and $4 billion in lost revenue (Economic Development Administration's "Economic Impact Assessment of Hurricane Floyd for NC.") According to the NOAA, the 2005 hurricane season is expected to be "above average" in terms of the number and severity of storms. Seven to nine hurricanes are predicted with three to five of those becoming major events.

According to www.weather.com, Tropical Storm Emily was upgraded to hurricane status this week, and is expected to become a major storm with winds in excess of 110 mph by Saturday. Emily could hit the Gulf states by the middle of next week.

"DataChambers hopes to minimize the economic risk of such natural disasters by providing the services needed for continuing business activities, not just here in the Triad, but across the country," said Boening. These services include an underground hardened data center which maintains Level Four security, co-location, continuity seating and hosting.

Growing Pains

DataChambers also doubled its data storage capabilities to include new equipment with the capacity to store 50,000 gigabytes of data. "We've had an increase in customer demand," said CEO Nicholas Kottyan, "and a greater need exists when it comes to protecting information from everyday business risks. Expanding our data center capacity was inevitable."

DataChambers' clientele has increased by 300 percent since fall 2004. Kottyan stated that the most popular services to which customers subscribe include offsite data protection capability and disaster recovery services.

DataChambers' customers come from all over the nation and utilize a wide array of services, from the secure data center facility to electronic offsite data storage. The data center encompasses the security needed for storing such high risk information and offers a one-of-a-kind approach to electronic storage, said Kottyan. "The facility is unlike any other on the eastern seaboard. Complete with security cameras and biometric scanners, our underground bunkered Data Center and Network Operations Center are the most secure in the region."

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