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Online Tech Invests $1 Million In Mid-Michigan Data Center Expansion

ANN ARBOR -- Online Tech Inc. said Tuesday that it has invested over $1 million upgrading and expanding its Mid-Michigan data center over the last 9 months.

The data center, near Flint, was built in 1986 by EDS as a disaster recovery data center for General Motors. Online Tech took over the data center in 2005 with its acquisition of Gentech and has since continued to invest aggressively in the multi-tenant data center.

The company's recent investments have focused on three core areas: assuring a high availability infrastructure to keep their clients' servers always up and online;  higher energy efficiency with greener technologies; and an improved client experience at the data center.

To assure higher availability, Online Tech upgraded its entire UPS backup power infrastructure, adding 100 kilowatts of power to deliver 1 megawatt of power to the data center floor. The entire replacement was carefully planned and managed to avoid any loss of power to the data center floor.

"All of our data center equipment, which we monitor and maintain on a consistent basis, is carefully audited to determine a timeline of use life. As the UPS infrastructure was reaching the end of its useful life, we wanted to replace it proactively to assure no incidents or risk to our client base" said Yan Ness, CEO of Online Tech.

Both the UPS and recent CRAC (Computer Room Air Conditioning) upgrades have delivered a much higher level of energy efficiency to the data center. Energy efficiency of the UPS system increased from 80 percent to 92.5 percent with the installation of the new MGE UPSs from Schneider Electric. The upgraded CRAC units are also much more energy efficient by taking advantage of the free cooling that comes to Michigan nine months of the year.

"The equipment was chosen for its proven history of reliability, fantastic load protection, infrastructure compatibility, and a high level of trust and credibility with the manufacturer," said Jason Yaeger, Online Tech director of operations.

In addition to the infrastructure upgrades, Online Tech added additional work areas, conference rooms and a kitchen for clients to use outside of the data center.

"It can be hard working inside a data center with high noise levels and lack of work surfaces," said Mike Klein, President of Online Tech. "We wanted to give our clients a place outside of the data center where they can take a break, have meetings or get some work done in a more relaxed environment."

Online Tech plans to continue investing in their Michigan data centers as utilization and efficiency opportunities present themselves.

For more information on the UPS upgrade, please visit: www.onlinetech.com/company/michigan-data-centers/mid-michigan-data-center/upgrades-to-mid-michigan-data-center

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