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We are very excited to announce the opening of our newest and largest data center in Toronto Canada. At more than 40,000 square feet, this new data center is more than twice the size of a professional hockey rink and marks the first time we’re offering all three hosting solutions (colocation, dedicated hosting and managed hosting – in Canada).

“The Internet is a vital platform for our customers, and it continues to grow,” said Fabio Banducci, president and CEO for PEER 1 Hosting. “Our new state-of-the-art Toronto data centre ensures we stay current and provide the fastest and most reliable network to serve our customers, now and in the future, while providing PEER 1 with enhanced flexible capacity to support its own growth.”

This is the most efficient data center we’ve built to date, with increased power densities, high reliability, and robust security. Building it in four sections, with each section built as a separate Performance Optimized Data Centre (POD), enabling customers to expand their data center capacity faster than ever before.

The new data center utilizes some of the most efficient products and technologies on the market. This includes a redundant critical cooling infrastructure using both a local well for primary water supply and a connection to the city’s water system.

“We’re also using redundant high-efficiency Variable Frequency Drive centrifugal chillers to reduce cooling costs and condenser towers with economizers,” adds Ryan Murphey, vice president of facilities and data center operations for PEER 1 Hosting. “This enables PEER 1 to lessen the environmental impact of the data center by taking advantage of “free cooling” when the temperature drops below 10C.”

This data center marks our third data center in Toronto and 17th worldwide, adding to our managed network spanning 13,000 route miles of fibre.

Read Official Press Release

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WHIR tv continues to cover the ongoing construction of our new flagship data center in Toronto, Canada.

After delays caused by a five week Toronto City strike we are making great progress. We have completed over 60% of removing the old roofing, re-sloping, and applying a new roof on the building utilizing “Cool Roof” technology for energy efficiency. Construction has also begun in the equipment yard to prepare the ground for the foundations of the mechanical and generator buildings. Inside the building we have finished demolition of existing areas that we would not utilize. We are re-utilizing as much as possible from the demolition for our new build out to minimize waste and also recycling as much as possible.

Watch the latest video from The Whir on the Toronto Data Center build out above.

We’ve mentioned previously on our blog that we’re headed to the track again for the 24 Hours of Lemons and we’ve challenged you to a race. Will we see you there?

Last year PEER 1 participated in the 24 Hours of Lemons event that took place in

PEER 1 at 24 Hours of Lemons - Kershaw, South Carolina 2008

Kershaw, South Carolina. We posted pictures and a video interview with Jay Lamm, “The Chief Perpetrator”of the event and we’ll be at it again this year at the “Laissez Les Crapheaps Roulez New Orleans” on June 6-7, 2009.

We’ll have employees from two of our office locations participating – PEER 1 Atlanta and ServerBeach San Antonio. PEER 1’s system administrator Kevin Lee will be leading the team again this year. Last year, we quoted him saying, “I spent so much time at junkyards, I never want to see another one again”. Well, this year he was back at it hitting the junkyards getting the PEER 1 1981 Turbo Diesel Mercedes ready for this years race.

To remind everyone what the 24 Hour of Lemons is all about:

Nasty. Brutish. Not Short Enough.

The crowd. The spectacle. The pall of blue smoke and roasted clutch discs. In all motorsport, no event captures the universal human need to whale on old crapcans and hoover down greasy barbecue like the 24 Hours of LeMons.

Each LeMons race is for cars purchased, fixed up, and track-prepped for a total of 500 dollars or less. But before reaching the grid, you’ll have to survive trials like the Personal-Injury-Lawyer Anti-Slalom, the Marxist-Valet Parking Challenge, and the Wide Open Throttle Rodthrowapalooza. Twelve hours into the race, the car voted People’s Choice is called in and awarded a cash prize; simultaneously, the car voted People’s Curse is called in and summarily destroyed. At the end of 24 hours, a gala awards ceremony plies the survivors with trophies, plaques, and four-figure purses in canvas bags full of nickels. What’s not to like? — 24 Hours of Lemons Website

For requirements, rules, and fees, visit http://www.24hoursoflemons.com. For track information and location, please visit http://www.24hoursoflemons.com/events/noproblem09/

For more information on the PEER 1 race challenge, or if you’re in the neighborhood and would like to say hello, please contact:

Charnell Pugsley
PEER 1 Community Evangelist
cpugsley@peer1.com
210-798-4413

We’ve just recently launched SmartMonitoring^TM, a full suite of advanced monitoring solutions now available for our managed hosting customers. Utilizing the platform of partner, Absolute Performance Inc., SmartMonitoring provides in-depth data and analysis to better anticipate IT needs for business success. This offering, which will be expanded to all product lines later this year, represents strategic momentum in working together with best-of-breed companies to provide PEER 1 customers a valuable range of products and services.

“With the launch of SmartMonitoring, we are offering the best monitoring services available, while continuing to provide the advanced hosting services that are in greatest demand by our customers,” said Tim Varma, director of product management for PEER 1. “SmartMonitoring will help our customers increase efficiency and maximize IT resources, which is especially vital in today’s economy. With our fully scalable hosting solutions and services, PEER 1 adjusts to customers’ needs and helps them be more cost effective, to keep their businesses running smoothly.”

With SmartMonitoring, PEER 1 customers can choose the services and features, from basic to highly complex, that are most vital to their business success. These services are available through SmartMonitoring’s on-demand platform interface, which provides anyone in the organization, from CEO to system engineer, understandable, information on how application and system components are working together. This real-time data gives insight into potential issues so they can be proactively addressed in the most efficient and timely way.

For more information and full press release, please see http://www.peer1.com/aboutus/news.php?id=117

PEER 1 announced today that we are building out on a 41,000 square foot green data center in the Toronto area. Our new facility will implement some of the most efficient products and technologies on the market, including the use of a local well for primary water supply with redundant connection to the city water system to reduce overall carbon footprint and provide lower energy consumption. The first stage is scheduled for completion in early 2010, and will include 7,500 square feet of data center space, and 8,000 square feet of office and staging area. The remaining 25,500 square feet will be dedicated to additional data center space and infrastructure which will be built out in three future phases.

We also announced our membership in The Green Grid. The Green Grid is a global consortium dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in data centers and business computing ecosystems. The Green Grid seeks to provide industry-wide recommendations on best practices, metrics and technologies that will improve overall data center and business computing energy efficiencies. By joining The Green Grid, we’re trying to do our part in helping influence both developers and end users of data center technology.

Read press release

PEER 1 announced today the official opening of its European headquarters in Southampton UK and the naming of industry veteran Dominic Monkhouse as managing director. There are many reasons why we have expanded to the UK including favorable exchange rates, falling real estate prices, a UK market growth of 25 percent, and the fact we currently have 500 UK and European-based customers. The opening will allow us to further support these customers while attracting new customers in the region.

The opening also includes the launch of our first UK data center, which will offer managed hosting through the PEER 1 brand and dedicated hosting through ServerBeach. As with all of our other data centers, it will be connected to our company-owned SuperNetwork which offers highly scalable and available content delivery to customers through Fast-Ethernet and Gigabit-Ethernet access over 13,000 miles of fibre connectivity.

PEER 1 will be exhibiting this week at the Internet World Expo April 28-30 at Earl’s Court, London. If you have an opportunity, please drop by for a visit. Drinks are on us! Just ask for Dom.

Official press release: http://www.peer1.com/aboutus/news.php?id=111

For more info, visit http://www.peer1.com/uk

Picture this: The year is 2005. It’s the The Massive Technology Show being held in Vancouver at Science World. Peer 1 staffers in the back room kitchen feverishly mixing the signature “Peertini.” They’re using extra large garbage cans as mixing vats. (New, clean plastic garbage cans, of course.) Between 4:30pm and 8pm the Peer 1 “bartenders” cranked out almost EIGHT HUNDRED Peertinis (served in special Peer 1-branded glasses) to some very thirsty show attendees. A sea of green drinks filled the Science center.

Happiness abounded and the Peertini legend was born.

THE PEERTINI

1½ ounce Vodka
1½ ounce White Grape Juice
½ ounce Sour Apple Pucker Schnapps
½ ounce Triple Sec
½ ounce Lemon Juice

DIRECTIONS

Shake with ice
Strain into a chilled glass
Garnish with Granny Smith Apple

Smile.

April Fools Day has come and gone and we’ve seen some pretty funny pranks around the Internet. our Vancouver staff had a little fun of their own and pulled quite a prank on our President and CEO, Fabio Banducci and Executive VP and CFO, Gary Sherlock.

So what did they do? The staff put up packing peanuts, piece-by-piece against the inside glass of their shared office, locked up the doors, and added caution signs and a packing slip on the outside! Fabio came in a little early that morning and was the first to witness the potential disaster in his office. Rather than try opening his door to begin his day, he decided to wait for Gary to arrive… you know, being courteous and all… and to let him enter before him!

The prank was a success. Fabio and Gary believed their entire office was filled with these packing peanuts, when in fact, it was only an illusion. Way to go everyone! Share your comments and any other great pranks you saw or heard this past April Fools Day.

Continuing to highlight fast-growing customers as part of our recently launched “Million Hits” campaign, we would like to introduce you to LANDFLIP, who has experienced significant growth since joining PEER 1 in October 2007. PEER 1 provides LANDFLIP, a top land real estate online listings site, the scalable managed hosting solution needed for its intense online growth.

Founder, Ryan Folk, recently told us that, “The speed of the network is phenomenal, and the PEER 1 infrastructure allows access to LANDFLIP with extreme speeds from anywhere.”

In LANDFLIP’s first year with PEER 1, they experienced a 460 percent growth and now see more than 350,000 unique visitors each month! The company continues to grow, despite today’s economy, as people are looking for more tangible assets and land is an advantageous option.

A big congrats to the folks at LANDFLIP on their success and growth. For more information, please visit our Resource Center and view the LANDFLIP case study: http://www.peer1.com/resources/questions/145/LANDFLIP

Remember, if you’ve experienced, or are experiencing, sudden online growth, we want to hear about it! Tell us about your experience and we’ll share your story here.