First Advanced Data Center in the Northeast to be Launched by Keystone NAP

Keystone NAP today announced it will launch the first advanced data center in the Northeast capable of meeting the needs of today's web-scale enterprises.

From its secure site in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Keystone NAP will address the underserved Mid-Atlantic market with a unique offering that combines robust power and communications infrastructure with advanced network management, data center migration, and application optimization services. The company was founded by a veteran team of IT executives and is built for customers that rely heavily on network-based applications, as well as those companies delivering cloud-based solutions. Keystone NAP also delivers multi-layered site security and contains massive capacity for future growth.

Promising a powerful presence for businesses serving the Northeast, Keystone NAP offers:

• Web-Scale Infrastructure: Four independent power generation plants adjoin the Keystone NAP site providing unmatched power availability, while diverse, carrier-neutral and redundant fiber routes to major peering points in the U.S. deliver guaranteed network performance.
• Gateway to the Northeast: The physical location of Keystone NAP ensures ultra-low latency network connections to the dense corporate and consumer markets in the Northeast, with synchronous communications to Philadelphia, New York, and the surrounding areas. The facility is the only center of its kind within easy traveling distance of businesses in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC.
• Application Performance Advantage: Keystone NAP provides standard facility management, multi-tenant data center services, and work space recovery solutions, but also advanced services that reduce business risk and ensure operational efficiency and high-grade application performance.

"We are bridging a crucial technology gap on the East Coast," said Peter Ritz, Founder and CEO of Keystone NAP. "Across industries including healthcare, financial services, higher education, and more, there is a growing reliance on enterprise applications hosted in private, public, and hybrid clouds. Yet until now, there haven't been solutions in the region to address the new demands those applications create. Companies increasingly need greater data center power and connectivity, as well as service support to keep operations running smoothly while employees focus on core business functions. This is what Keystone NAP delivers: unrivaled enterprise application performance, provided through a unique advanced data center solution in the Mid-Atlantic market."

"We are seeing growing demand for data center space in the Northeast, and particularly in eastern Pennsylvania as an alternative to markets such as NY/NJ," noted Kelly Morgan, Research Manager for Datacenters at 451 Research. "With its location outside of Philadelphia, as well as its combination of space, power and application management services, we expect that Keystone NAP will see strong demand for this new facility."

Unique Assets

Through a strategic partnership with Schneider Electric, Keystone NAP has co-developed a unique system of private modular, stackable data center vaults called KeyBlocks™. KeyBlocks are designed for maximum security and leverage the facility’s power profile offering custom-configured redundant, conditioned, uninterruptible power ranging from 100kW all the way up to 400kW per KeyBlock. The pre-fabricated modules are quick to deploy, and, since each KeyBlock is private and not shared with other customers, Keystone NAP can offer custom SLAs that address customers' specific power, cooling, security and redundancy requirements.

“Today’s increasingly digital business environment is causing rapidly growing demand for more flexible, scalable, quickly deployable, and in Keystone NAP’s case, immensely powerful and highly connected data centers – all with a continued focus on controlling customer costs,” said Jason Walker, Director, Data Center Service Provider Segment, Schneider Electric. “With stackable KeyBlocks, Schneider Electric is providing an innovative solution that fully leverages the capabilities of this unique facility to quickly meet the most demanding customer requirements.”

Keystone NAP has also formed critical network connectivity partnerships. With networks built out directly to the Keystone NAP site, Sunesys and Comcast deliver dedicated bandwidth to Keystone NAP customers through independent dual feeds entering the facility from opposite sides of the campus. Through Sunesys, customers also gain access to diverse, carrier-neutral and redundant dark fiber routes to New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Northern Virginia and Chicago. These fiber routes provide on-net cross-connects to major peering points, enabling further access to networks managed by Zayo, Cogent, Level 3, AT&T, Verizon and many others.

As part of an elite category of facilities, Keystone NAP is one of a select few data centers in the United States to deliver the web-scale infrastructure and first-class network and application services that large enterprises need to compete in demanding markets today and in the future. As the only advanced data center in the Northeast, Keystone NAP is uniquely positioned to support companies that are serving customers throughout the Mid-Atlantic and beyond.

Commissioning of the Keystone NAP advanced data center is scheduled to be completed in Q1 2015.