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

Here is the second video installment of The Whir’s ongoing coverage of the build out of our state-of-the-art green data center in Toronto, Canada. The new facility will provide Managed Hosting, Dedicated Hosting, and Colocation services.

See first video here

Whir TV is doing on-going coverage of the latest PEER 1 data center being built out in Toronto, Canada. You can watch the first installment here.

This 41,000 sq ft space will transform into our most eco-friendly data center. The facility will use 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 of four planned stages is scheduled for completion in early 2010. Other efficiencies planned are the use of redundant high efficiency VFD centrifugal chillers and heat exchangers to take advantage of “free cooling” during colder months, providing significant energy savings. This also enables us to use more environmentally friendly refrigerants not commonly found in current air-cooled systems.

So what exactly is colocation? Or is it collocation? Wait, maybe it’s co-location. Let’s start by explaining what any of the before-mentioned means.

“Provision of space for a customer’s telecommunications equipment on the service provider’s premises.”

“Placement of your own server(s) and/or your network equipment in an Internet data center or colocation facility along with hundreds of others servers. The Data Center is managed to provide reliable networking, power, connectivity and security services. You can access you machines by going to the facility at any time.”

Colocation has several advantages for the customer:

So when searching for a provider to handle your colocation needs, what is the proper term to use in your searches that will give you correct search results? Colocation, collocation, or co-location? Data Center Map has created a great article to break down which term is most widely used by Google, Industry leaders, large providers, and media. Turns out that “colocation” is definitely the most widely used term and therefore the best term to be using if you want to reach the majority of your target group.

For a complete breakdown including graphs, check out this article.

Also, here is more information about PEER 1’s colocation plans.

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 partnered with Lisa Sabin-Wilson, celebrity blogger and author of “WordPress for Dummies”, to offer free premium blog templates, valued at $1,200 each, designed exclusively for PEER 1 and ServerBeach.

With an estimated 133 million blogs worldwide and growing, social networking and blogging has become the fourth most popular activity on the Internet, surpassing even e-mail.* For those looking to join the fast-growing blogging community, or just wanting to spice up current blogs, PEER 1 is offering five free custom-designed WordPress themes as a download to anyone who visits the PEER 1 or ServerBeach Web site.

The templates won’t be around for long, available for download only until June 30. To view the different designs and download a favorite, visit the PEER 1 Web site http://www.peer1.com/resources/wordpress_themes.php or the ServerBeach Web site http://www.serverbeach.com/resources/wordpress_themes.php.

To view the full press release, please visit http://www.peer1.com/aboutus/news.php?id=118

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

A few months back I began a fun little project – exposing our customers and posted about it on our ServerBeach Blog. The goal of this project is to give your business some added exposure. It’s called “You’re on My Shirt”.

Every week I will post a picture of me wearing a client’s branded T-shirt along with a description of your business and a friendly link to your site or blog.

So what’s the catch, you ask? Nothing really. To be featured, all you have to do is be a current PEER 1 client and mail or courier me a T-shirt with your company name on the front and/or back… and that’s it! BTW, size MEDIUM please.

The PEER 1 Blog has a loyal following and is viewed daily by many online users. This new feature is a way for us to extend some love to our clients and get you some more free exposure.

You can view some of the ServerBeach “You’re On My Shirt” pictures and blog posts here: http://serverbeach.wordpress.com/?s=you%27re+on+my+shirt.

To get on my shirt, fire off an e-mail to me and I’ll reply back right away with some details and questions about your business, as well as an address to send me your T-shirt.

Be the first one to get featured!

Charnell Pugsley
Community Evangelist
cpugsley@peer1.com

Rajan Sodhi, VP Marketing for PEER 1 and ServerBeach

The title says it all. Rajan Sodhi, VP of Marketing and Communications for PEER 1 and ServerBeach was recently recognized for “Thinking Outside the Box“. Rajan has been called an “Everyday Customer Champion“. He spends so much time doing what he does best – being creative … and it works. Much of the creativity is humorous as you can see from the videos that he’s directed – for example “Growing Pains“. But even while it was humorous, it really hit home with many of our customers and the general public which says that he clearly understands the growing pains that many people face in business. You can find Rajan making his way in the social media scene, listening, communicating, and connecting onthe following:

Twitter – @rsodhi
LinkedIn – rajansodhi
Ning -http://peerone.ning.com/

FaceBook, and several other places around the Internet. So if you haven’t already, be sure to follow him on Twitter and while you’re at it check out his blog too “BIG Marketing for Small Business”.

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