A Minnetonka-based company specializing in data backup, storage, cloud computing and Web hosting is expanding to St. Cloud, with plans to build a $2 million, 5,000-square-foot data center within the next year.
Vaultas, which recently completed a similar facility in Alexandria, has constructed an 800-gigabyte fiber optic network between Minneapolis and Fargo with an outlet for a data center in St. Cloud.
Representatives from Vaultas are eager to meet people from the St. Cloud area Tuesday at a technology and education conference at the St. Cloud Holiday Inn & Suites.
"We're a developer, builder and operator of systems for small- and medium-sized companies," said Vaultas CEO John Unger, who has been with the company since 2009 but has 34 years of experience building phone companies and data centers. "We want to let people know we're here and they can take advantage of high-speed capacities and other functions we can provide."
Vaultas already has a 500-square-foot data center off West St. Germain Street and 22nd Street in St. Cloud. That center employs one technician, but will be supplanted by the new facility as soon as Vaultas can identify a location in the same general area. Unger said he hopes to have the new center operating by the end of next summer. The new site would employ perhaps a half-dozen technicians and other workers.
ADVERTISEMENT
"We're talking about something that can generate a tremendous amount of economic development," Unger said. "We'll serve the needs of existing businesses and bring new business into the market. This can be a place where any company in the Upper Midwest can choose to store their backup data. Those remote companies aren't going to bring employees out here to do that. Instead, we will be hiring higher-skilled workers at better-paying jobs to do that."
Vaultas provides vendor-neutral data center, co-location and BCDR (business continuity and disaster recovery) facilities. Unger said his company's mission is to bring the St. Cloud business community "collaborative, affordable security solutions to defend their data and ease operating expenses."
"Our work is done via contract, so we're not out to compete with the local IT community -- we want to embrace it," added Unger, who previously assisted in building facilities for XO Communications in Chicago and built a facility in Minneapolis -- where he was vice president and general manager of XO Communications' Minneapolis sales office from 2002-2007.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
