WINNIPEG – MTS and its subsidiary EPIC Information Solutions unveiled plans for a new data centre during an official groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday.
(Pictured in photo, from left to right – Bart Leung, senior associate, Ehvert Mission Critical; Kelvin Shepherd, president, MTS; Pierre Blouin, CEO, MTS Allstream; Minister of Jobs and the Economy, Theresa Oswald; and David Reid, president & CEO, EPIC Information Solutions.)
The EPIC Data Centre, to be located at 1450 Waverley Street in Winnipeg, will provide data centre solutions and cloud services to Manitoba businesses as well as organizations across North America. It is expected to be operational and hosting customers by mid-2015.
The 64,000-square-foot building will house advanced IT equipment for MTS and EPIC customers and be equipped with the latest in reliable and efficient power and cooling systems. The facility is designed to meet stringent Uptime Institute Tier III reliability standards, will be equipped with sophisticated power back-up and management systems, and will have multiple connections to MTS's high capacity telecommunications networks. The facility is being built in accordance with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards, and the design calls for advanced cooling techniques that help decrease energy consumption and cooling costs by as much as 70%.
EPIC Information Solutions will operate the data centre and provide managed services for business customers – from physical management of customer IT equipment to security to operating system and services management. The EPIC Data Centre will be an essential foundation for customers who want to transition from traditional IT strategies to the Cloud, which requires access to high capacity IP networks.
"This will be Manitoba's most sophisticated and most reliable multi-tenant data centre," said MTS Allstream CEO Pierre Blouin, in the announcement. "By building the data centre from the ground up, we have total control over its location, capacity and design. The data centre will provide highly reliable and secure data centre space and IT services for our customers."
"All of us at MTS and EPIC are excited to see the EPIC Data Centre come to life," added EPIC Information Solutions president and CEO David Reid. "EPIC Data Centre will be home to Manitoba's first public enterprise cloud for large businesses. Our cloud services will provide a highly secure, reliable and robust compute and storage infrastructure, allowing our customers to provision IT systems in minutes instead of weeks."
