Keeping Data Safe

Five years ago, George Henny powered up his first black cabinet filled with a stack of high-powered computers on the seventh floor of Everett Mutual Tower on Colby Avenue and launched LightStream Data Centers Inc.

“I got the seed of an idea about building a data center in 1998 or ’99, when the dot-com boom was creating huge data centers in Seattle to serve Internet companies, as well as other businesses. But nobody was serving the Everett market. By 2002, we were up and running with data center facilities and services,” said Henny, whose family owns and operates Whidbey Telephone Co. and its Internet services.

That was a time for visionary thinking and corporate courage, a time when only giant companies were developing complex and expensive data centers, a time when the bursting of the dot-com bubble had just left vast terabytes of fiber-optic communications lines dark and a time when the economy was struggling.

But it also was a time when the nation’s businesses were still reeling from the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a time when Puget Sound businesses were fearful of how their Internet links, computer systems and backed-up data would survive new attacks — or more common disasters

Today, operating as FiberCloud Data Centers in Everett, Seattle and Bellingham, Henny has proven his vision was right. Big time. He serves scores of small and medium-size businesses throughout King, Snohomish, Skagit, Island and Whatcom counties.

“People are thinking more about how critical their data records are to their business,” Henny said. “Ask yourself, ‘How long could my business operate if a disaster wiped out my customer files, billing accounts, accounting and production figures?’ For most businesses that would be a serious disruption or worse, perhaps even ruining the company. Yet even those companies who do back up their computer records often admit that their backup server is sitting on top of their operating server, right in the same company office. In a fire you’d lose both of them.”

Those are some of the main reasons why FiberCloud is storing and protecting data records for so many businesses, including the prestigious Seattle law firm Preston, Gates, Ellis; St. Joseph Hospital in Bellingham; Providence Everett Medical Center; The Everett Clinic; the Port of Everett and many others, including banks, large online retailers, ISPs, accounting firms and manufacturing firms.

After opening the Everett Mutual Tower site — in a building that survived the 6.8-magnitude Nisqually earthquake in 2001 without damage — Henny bought a data center in Bellingham in 2003 called FiberCloud. That second center not only expanded his services and facilities but also led to changing the company name from LightStream to FiberCloud.

A short time later, FiberCloud bought Compass Communications and its downtown Seattle data center in the Westin building. For years, that structure also has provided an Internet hub for the Pacific Northwest and is home to the region’s nerve center for the telecommunications industry.

Adding to the security and reliability of the FiberCloud network is the company’s strategic partnership contract with Black Rock Cable in Bellingham to provide high-speed fiber-optic cable links between FiberCloud’s data centers and its customers.

“FiberCloud is our favorite data center,” said Bob Warshawer, owner of Black Rock Cable. “They’re a data center; we’re a fiber network, so we have a great relationship and services for their customers.”

Black Rock Cable has targeted regional customers in Whatcom, Skagit, Snohomish and Island counties, linking businesses, cities, counties, public agencies and charitable organizations to their clients, data centers and each other over reliable fiber-optic cable networks. The firm has deployed more than 175 private fiber-optic cables over its 380 miles of network in the region.

Among his clients are the city of Anacortes, the Bellingham Fire Department, Port of Bellingham, Builders Exchange of Washington, Gateway Centre Executive Suites, Haskell Inc., Horizon Bank, Island Hospital, Janicki Industries, KVOS-TV, Lummi Indian Business Council, Northwest Radiologists, Pacific Northwest Cardiology, Paccar, Skagit State Bank, Skagit Valley Hospital, Washington State Department of Transportation, Whatcom Health Information Network (HInet), Whidbey Island Bank, Wilder Construction Co. and Windermere Real Estate.

“Many of our customers are Seattle firms who want to have their records in a safe place in Everett in case of an earthquake hitting King County harder than up here,” Henny said. “We offer the kind of protection they would need to survive. Too many businesses still have their own tape backups, an in-house computer room and servers that are vulnerable because they’re only in one place, inside the business they support.”

Gerald Sherrill, regional operations manager for FiberCloud’s three data centers, said, “Companies are now coming to us to look around now that they’ve heard what we have to offer and they’ve begun thinking more about the survivability of their businesses.”

Henny said space in the Everett center is filling up, but there is still ample room for growth there, as well as in the Bellingham and Seattle data centers.

“Typically, people don’t look at record security until after a disaster event. We’re trying to get them to think about doing something before that happens. Studies have shown many businesses could lose up to $100,000 of business for every hour their data isn’t accessible. After more than 72 hours without access to company data, many businesses never recover at all. Today, people have to have access to their business files, customer lists and other data all the time,” he said.