Q9 Networks Sets New Standards in Security and Redundancy

Canadian Colocation Firm Offers 100% Uptime

January 2001
By Adam Eisner and Jamie Breadmore

Standing outside Q9 Network's Operations Centre, VP of Marketing David Chaloner looks through the glass window in to the heart of their network. Inside is something reminiscent of a NASA control center: numerous administrators huddle around a computer, dwarfed by giant screens displaying Q9's network status. Meanwhile, a number of consoles monitor the activity of their entire network. "I could get fired for going in there," he says. Kevin Spikes, Q9's manager of marketing and communications, nods. "It's grounds for dismissal," he says.

It's this high-tech, high-security attitude that embodies what Toronto-based co-location specialists Q9 Networks is all about: providing a well-connected, secure environment for their customers.

Clients must register with security, have their fingerprints scanned and pass through an anti-hostage turnstile before entering the Q9 data centre

Even a 99.9 percent uptime guarantee means your Web site can be down for a number of hours every month. And while that might not seem like a lot, it can spell disaster for companies that rely on e-commerce services as a major stream of revenue. Realizing that many companies simply can't afford to have their Web site ever go down, Q9 Networks established a state-of-the-art network and data center that offers a unique guarantee: your Web site will never falter. Ever.

"We guarantee 100 percent uptime," says David Newall, Q9's Vice-President of Sales. "What we recognize is that applications and businesses are moving out on to the Web. And whether you're a large enterprise organization or whether you're a new economy company'' [your site] cannot be down.'' And Newall says it's the sites that can't be down that Q9 wants as clients. "We cater to those organizations that have those mission-critical Web presences."

Q9 Networks was established in January 2000 by Osama Arafat, a well-known consultant in Canadian business circles and also the co-founder of Inforamp, one of Canada's largest ISPs. Arafat was concerned that there simply weren't any quality co-location facilities based in Canada. "[Arafat] found that the level of service provided by companies that do co-location was inferior to the United Sates," Newall says. There was "a very nascent market in Canada, with a lot of U.S. based organizations treating Canada like a 51st state. Looking to change the landscape of the Canadian co-location market, Arafat assembled top-notch technical and management teams, hand-picking staff from some of Canada's biggest Internet providers. Q9 flipped the switch in September, and their network has been humming ever since. "Since we turned the network on September fifth we haven't had a second of downtime," Newall says. Q9 has also attracted a number of high-profile clients in the meantime, including GroceryGateway.com, a popular grocery shopping service based in Toronto. They also house the servers of software developers QNX, and online charity site Charity.ca.

As you might imagine, guaranteeing 100 percent uptime isn't easy. Q9 has gone through great pains to ensure their clients are online in the event of any sort of emergency. They have established relationships with a number of Canadian and U.S. backbones, including Sprint Canada, Look Communications, Teleglobe, UUNET, PSINet, ATT Canada and several more. This means that unlike most major hosting companies, traffic moving through Q9's network doesn't have to pass through peering points across the United States via tier-one carriers in order to get from point A to point B. Instead, Q9's network finds the fastest route between the two and delivers the data immediately.

But instead of taking their word for it, Q9 invited The WHIR to their offices, to see their company in action.

Q9's head office and main data center is located in downtown Toronto and takes up a number of floors in the Toronto-Dominion Centre, a black skyscraper in the middle of Canada's financial center, and one of Toronto's prime pieces of real estate. [To watch RealVideo footage of the data center equipment being airlifted into the building, please click here].

Upon visiting Q9, it quickly becomes apparent that this company has recognized that security and back-up systems go hand-in-hand with redundancy. Step off the elevators one floor below Q9's main office, and you're greeted with a well-lit, nondescript hallway. At the end of the hallway are two security officers behind bulletproof glass, and an anti-hostage turnstile that requires a valid security pass and biometric fingerprint check before it will budge. Beyond the turnstile is Q9's data center, which offers clients everything from standard 19" half and full cabinets to gigantic made-to-order cages to house miniature server farms. In case of any sort of power outage, the facility is connected to two city power grids and two back-up battery systems.

Q9 offers customers standard 19" half and full racks

"We've got more power running to the data center than the rest of the building combined," Newall says. And in the event of a main power outage, there's 50,000 liters of fuel and two diesel generators waiting to be fired up. The two generators pack enough power to supply four days of full power to their client's servers. And in the event of an extended outage, Q9 has a contract with a local fuel provider for additional gas to power the generator. Newall says you can hit Q9 with just about any worst-case scenario, and their servers will still remain online. "In the event of a disaster where you've got city water and power going out, we're still fine in providing the right environment to your server," he says. And should your server go down because of a problem at Q9's end, you are eligible for up to a month in refunds.

Customers also have 24/7 unannounced access to their machine (once they register their fingerprints with their security staff, of course). Each account is accompanied by one of the industry's most powerful control panels, which features real-time statistics, powerful domain and DNS features, and the ability to maintain an "emergency escalation" file that lists who should be contacted, and in what order, in case of an emergency.

Q9 also custom-builds cages to customer specifications

While Q9 offers their services worldwide, they plan to only physically locate servers in Canada. And they're so confident of their products and services that they're already looking toward the future. Chaloner says the company is studying opening offices in other major Canadian cities like Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver. "It's really a question of how soon we want to build out of the Toronto area," he says. And Chaloner feels that with that expansion there will have to be education. A seasoned veteran who's worked for a couple of Internet security companies in the U.S., Chaloner says Canadians need to wake up to the fact that contrary to popular believe, Canadians can receive co-location services that are just as good as what their American counterparts receive, and that Canadian hosting consumers do have choices. "Downtime isn't an acceptable way of doing business [in the U.S.]," he says. "Whereas in Canada, downtime is not as big an evil. We have to show people in Canada that there is a real alternative."

Reprinted from The Web Host Industry Review, January 2001
Visit The Web Host Industry Review and view the article here

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