Network Technology Group Center Got Right Down To Business

Last December, the Baton Rouge, La.-based solution provider opened a business-continuity center designed to help displaced companies get back up and running in the event of just such a disaster.

“I knew it was something that would happen. It [was] not a matter of if, but when. [New Orleans] was No. 1 on the Homeland Security list of potential disasters. What was surprising was that so many businesses had no plan,” said Scott Thompson, CEO of Network Technology Group.

The 10,000-square-foot center at its headquarters in Baton Rouge&s Louisiana Technology Park also houses its own data center. The facility proved crucial to a number of clients displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

“I think New Orleans should erect a statue to these guys for all they did keeping customers up and running,” said David Ruth, MIS director at Liskow and Lewis, a 100-person law firm in New Orleans that leased some cubicles in the center immediately following the storm and still stores its data with Network Technology Group.

The facility also opened its doors to dozens of staff members from the city&s daily newspaper, the New Orleans Times-Picayune, which used the facility as its technology center when it was forced from its home base, Thompson said.

All told, more than 200 people passed through the center following Katrina, and the solution provider leased an additional 8,500 square feet for a year.

“Depending on our reservation status, we make that permanent,” Thompson said.

The center includes 93 cubicles, a VoIP phone system, high-speed Internet, full network connectivity and configuration options, conference room space, equipment storage space, a data center, and even a full kitchen and shower facilities.

Network Technology Group offers three levels of service in the center: guaranteed; first-come, first-served; and daily. The majority of spaces sold prior to Katrina were guaranteed, which allowed companies to better plan their own business-continuity strategies, Thompson said.

“Now we&ve survived two hurricanes. I think there will continue to be demand. No one knows what New Orleans will look like in six months,” Thompson said.