Geographical Location
To provide our website hosting and server colocation services, our servers are located in the downtown area of Montreal, Quebec. More precisely, on the Rene Levesque West Boulevard, close to the Bell Centre. The data centre is next to a metro station and is located only a few steps away from a suburban train station. If you have a car, many paid parking lots surround the center. Also, on Rene Levesque, you will find metered parking spaces. Click on the following link to see a map of the geographical location of the centre.
The Building
The building where the data centre is located uses cutting edge technology and respects the latest security standards. The building was built in 1992, has 47 floors and a height of 226 metres. It is the second highest building in Montreal. There are many coffee shops and restaurants on the mezzanine level should you have to work lengthily on your servers.
Air-Conditioning and Elevated Floor
The floor of the data centre is elevated by more than 15 inches (38 centimetres) which allows the air-conditioning to move freely throughout the centre. This also avoids heat zones since it all comes from the ground. There is thus only one temperature, the one that makes you shiver. The elevated floor also makes it possible to easily pass cables.
Generator and Emergency UPS
Inside the various rooms of the data centre, you will find several emergency power supply systems, the UPS. They have an average power of 50 Kva and they are connected in series. After less than 5 minutes, the diesel generators take over to ensure that there is no interruption in power supply. The generators are reserved for the data centre only and are not used for the remainder of the building.
Security
The data centre is always supervised by a closed-loop camera system and also by IP cameras. To enter the building, you must have a magnetic card with your picture. This card gives you access to only one floor, the one where the data centre is located. The security guard of the building validates your identity before giving you access to the elevator, and once on the other floor another guard verifies your identity again. You will have to show your magnetic card at every door before reaching your servers.
Our network
Our main bandwidth supplier is Videotron Telecom, which has a backbone that reaches the majority of the metropolitan areas of Quebec. The network consists of 200 000 km of broadband fibre optics, which enables direct connectivity with networks in Ontario, Quebec and Canada. Numerous partnerships make it possible for VTL to serve customers throughout the world.
Our network is BGP with Cogent Communications, we thus have the best possible network redundancy.
The backbone of Cogent is designed to operate at 10 Gbps, which is the equivalent of an OC-192. They are present in over 95 urban agglomerations throughout North America and Europe. Cogent’s international IP network is the most important in the world and can reach a total capacity exceeding 1 terabit.