Redundant Networks Gets In Data Center Race

His answer? Four-month-old Redundant Networks believes it has figured out where first-generation data center providers went wrong and is taking a different approach to the market.

The differences between Redundant Networks' goals and what providers of yore set out to accomplish are numerous, but what stands out about the start-up is its conservatism and sharp focus on the service provider space.

Rather than building data centers that serve anyone looking for floor space, Redundant Networks unveiled just two sites, one on the East Coast and one on the West Coast, that strictly cater to service providers. By serving a single customer set, Redundant Networks said it can tailor its data center infrastructure and services to the specific needs of that group.

"[Service providers' requirements are homogenous, so we put together a platform that they basically just snap onto," said Laird, Redundant Networks' CEO. "But a single enterprise has many departments and many different needs."

While many first-generation data center providers developed a long list of service offerings, Redundant Networks is keeping that roster lean, Laird said.

"Companies such as Exodus had a list of 2,800 or more SKUs that were unmanageable," he said. "They'd take any kind of platform and ended up losing track of their customers and what they were managing for them."

Redundant Networks offers just six services: transport, support, security, facilities, implementation methodology, and name and address services. That may not be a lengthy list in and of itself, but each service consists of several pieces.

Transport, for example, includes static failover via private optical carrier and customizable VLAN settings, while support entails 24x7 access to network monitoring services, a help desk, a reporting portal and direct network operating center support and implementation services.

At the heart of Redundant Networks' offerings is realtime failover, mirroring and fault-tolerance services for all of its data center systems, and that includes managing network architecture, software and performance, as well as telecommunication links, Laird said. The realtime failover network is designed for 99.999 percent uptime.

The company has three charter service provider customers: SanSolutions, Twelve Horses and SmartOnline, and two channel partners: Avcom and Lightwave Consulting Group, said Laird.

Avcom, a longtime VAR working with Sun Microsystems, Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard and Oracle products, this month signed a deal with Redundant Networks to provide custom network installations and professional services to the companies' shared customer base, and to refer customers to Redundant Networks' data centers.

"We've been involved with traditional co-location for a long time and saw that they were trying to be all things to all people," said Bob Weeks, vice president of marketing at Avcom, Sunnyvale, Calif. "Redundant Networks, on the other hand, did its homework and identified what a specific customer base was looking for."

Redundant Networks' value to service providers lies in its simple, streamlined business model, said Laird. "We have only two centers and a specific set of services for a reason," he said. "If we add a third center, for example, that complicates management of the services and introduces technology challenges for realtime failover."

The fledgling data center operation wants to recruit 40 service providers,enough to boost Redundant Networks to profitability, Laird said. If the company decides to take on more customers, it will do so with existing facilities, he said.

"They have a very balanced set of interests," said Tom Turpin, president of Lightwave, Charlotte, N.C., whose parent company, Venture Group, signed the deal to sell Redundant Networks' services. "Even though they are very focused, they have been flexible with us and easy to negotiate with," he said.

Redundant Networks uses an agent model for partners, paying out a recurring fee to those that sell its services.