Since 2004, CloudOps has enabled hundreds of enterprises and web-based companies to build their business in the cloud. The company provides customers with private, public, and hybrid cloud solutions to confidently, securely, and reliably capture business opportunities while achieving new levels of performance and agility. The company is unique in its ability to offer hybrid solutions supported by managed service options to provide the best of all worlds in a solution that can adapt to changing requirements.
In order to provide the agility, simplicity, scalability, security, and cost control CloudOps promises to customers, the company depends on a key colocation partner as part of the value it delivers. Recently, the company launched a new offering — cloud.ca — a virtual private cloud built on the longstanding, favorable and symbiotic relationship with Cologix. To provide the best quality solution, CloudOps aligned the new product with Cologix’s newest, state-of-the-art Montreal data center.
“For a cloud provider like us, finding the right data center provider is a key decision,” noted Pierre-Luc Bisaillon, CloudOps chief operating officer. “It’s like the foundation of a house — Cologix provides the infrastructure as a base layer for CloudOps to offer a top quality product that requires a top quality data center. Cologix is also focused on colocation and not competing with us, which is important from the philosophy of true colocation partnership to support the strong growth of our business.”
A Journey To The Hybrid Cloud
In the past, CloudOps customers started their journey to the hybrid cloud in dedicated racks in a private cage in Cologix’s MTL 3 data center at 1250 Rene-Levesque Boulevard West, Montreal’s carrier hotel. Going forward, CloudOps envisions customers receiving the same levels of service and isolation, but with the flexibility to pay as they go. To support this vision with the launch of the cloud.ca solution, CloudOps expanded into Cologix’s MTL 7 data center at 1155 Robert-Bourassa (formerly University Street). MTL 7 is Cologix’s newest Montreal data center that annexes the carrier hotel’s connectivity via dark fiber.
In fact, CloudOps migrated from other colocation partners to reinvest with Cologix at MTL 7 to reflect the company’s commitment to its new cloud.ca offering — where CloudOps sees growth in the future. The new solution serves a niche market for low latency, data sovereign cloud infrastructure, as Canadians have many public cloud options; however, all are U.S. based and none provide true utility billing, rich API access, granular role-based access control, and departmental or reseller multi-tenancy – all with the security of a virtual cloud model. With Cologix, CloudOps can expand across Cologix’s 21 data centers, including facilities in major Canadian city centers to keep data within Canada.
Due to the rich ecosystem that intersects in Cologix carrier neutral centers, and the ease and low cost of adding direct connectivity (dark fiber and LANX), which provides customers with better security and performance while lowering the cost of bandwidth, the company preferred the urban setup versus other providers who establish data centers in suburban areas. Additionally, despite high demand for colocation services in central Montreal, CloudOps has room to expand across seven data centers throughout the city – a plus for a company ranked on Deloitte’s Technology Fast50 list and the 2014 PROFIT 500 fastest growing companies in Canada list.
Additionally, a lot of other data center providers CloudOps has encountered have moved towards hosting and other services that try to compete with CloudOps. The company can rest assured that Cologix is focused on colocation without threatening the partnership with CloudOps. This is a unique attribute, according to the company’s chief operating officer. Not many data centers in Montreal are cloud or carrier neutral — by eliminating the facilities operated by carriers alone, it doesn’t leave many options.
CloudOps customers value stability and performance above all else. By establishing redundancy through its data center, CloudOps can offer resiliency through its entire supply chain, all the way through to the power supply. Infrastructure stability is crucial as the company as well as its customers run its main applications and core business on Cologix infrastructure. Moreover, a major benefit of carrier neutral connectivity is cost-effective redundancy for CloudOps. The company can withstand one service provider going down by immediately switching to another without impact, with the added benefit of being able to choose the best carrier depending on the customer requirement.
With Cologix as a partner, CloudOps can go to market faster, resulting in the company getting customers up and running sooner, which is always ideal for a cloud provider.
“Cologix comes out strong against competitors when you put the factors together,” said Bisaillon. “For example, when you walk into the MTL 7 data center, the efficient power and cooling distribution, Meet-Me-Room density, attention to detail, conference space, very high standards and restrictions, efficient shipping, and overall well-kept facility, it’s a very impressive data center solution that gives confidence to CloudOps and our customers.”
