Located 15 miles from Q9's 20,000-sf downtown Toronto facility, the 160,000-sf Exodus property features 100% uptime, dual power feeds and advanced fire protection systems. Officials from Exodus and Q9 declined to reveal the sale price, but Q9 Networks CEO Osama Arafat tells GlobeSt.com his company got a "good deal" on the property following a two-month negotiation period. According to Arafat, the sale should be completed within days. "We expect to close the transaction next week some time and we hope to have possession no later than the end of February."
The company also has plans to open a similar 22,000-sf facility in Calgary this summer. Other upcoming projects include data centers in Ottowa, Montreal and Vancouver, but backing up the Toronto operation has been a longstanding company goal.
"Our intention has always been to expand in the Toronto area as demand for our services intensified," adds Arafat. "This acquisition enables us to meet that demand much faster than if we were to build a second location ourselves."
Q9 provides outsourced Internet infrastructure and managed services for the Web operations of companies including TD Securities, Rogers Media and the Shopping Channel. The new facility will be fully integrated into Q9's network, which connects directly with multiple Internet backbones. The data center will also bring the firm additional disaster recovery capability through geographic diversity.
Launched in May 2000, Q9 opened its current data center in downtown Toronto in September 2000. Since its inception, the firm has raised $115 million in private equity financing to fund a national network of Internet data centers in major cities across Canada. Services include bandwith, dedicated firewalls, load balancing, Virtual Private Networking and backup/restore.
San Francisco-based Exodus had 44 data centers in the US as well as facilities in Europe, Japan and Australia before filing for bankruptcy protection last September. The cash-strapped firm sold most of its assets in November to UK-based Cable & Wireless in a $750-million deal. Exodus Canada was not included in the bankruptcy filing and the Q9 sale was therefore not subject to court approval.
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