Constructed in the heart of Saskatchewan, Canada, the Data Centre offers a safe and secure operating environment used by large and small businesses throughout North America. Today, SaskTel provides Data Centre services to government, corporate and private customers on over 2,300 servers.

Saskatchewan, the area in which the Data Centre is constructed, is a geologically stable area with low risk of earthquakes, floods or tornadoes. Human threats such as chemical spills or criminal activities are at a minimum in Saskatchewan and are accounted for in our extensive emergency plans. In case of emergency, police and fire service are readily available for quick response.

Data Centre humidity and temperature is constantly monitored and controlled, with the temperature kept at a constant 22ºC (72ºF) for optimal operating conditions. Roof mounted units – in excess of minimum requirements - supply ventilation.

The facility is outfitted with a two-stage fire suppression system with cross-zoned detection that responds separately to heat or smoke. Additionally, a separate fire detection mechanism constantly samples the air and acts in tandem with ceiling mounted detectors.

The Data Centre is connected to a stable public power grid and has three back-up diesel-powered generators that can be fully active in one minute and are capable of running continuously for two weeks.

Power distribution within the server area is achieved using two power distributions units. Redundant, parallel and synchronized UPS systems provide a steady and stable power supply to the Data Centre’s infrastructure and servers. The UPS support systems also provide protection from power surges, ensuring the Data Centre hardware stays safe at all times.

The security of your data, applications and hardware is a priority for SaskTel. That is why bonded security personnel are onsite 24/7.

Additionally, all entries are electronically secured and the outer perimeter and corridors are monitored by closed-circuit cameras and motion detectors to restrict unauthorized access. Data Centre access is controlled through biometric scanners and key-cards.

Inside the facility our highly trained and experienced Experts monitor and maintain all systems for performance and availability, 24/7.

For equipment behind a shared firewall, redundant Ethernet connectivity is provided with high availability load balanced switches, fire and intrusion detection systems and multiple connections to core internet providers.

SaskTel provides several options for redundancy and backup, including:

• RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Drives)
• Hot and cold backups
• Daily, weekly and monthly system and data backups
• Off-site storage
• On-demand recovery of both data and applications

A separate private internal network is in place for data backup to ensure isolation of data from other systems, networks and access ports. The use of redundantly connected, high availability NAS (Network Attached Storage) and SAN (Storage Area Network) data environments is available for any system in the Data Centre.

In the event of disaster, SaskTel is committed to maintaining service continuity to the greatest possible extent, with the objective of protecting property, plant, service capability and resources. SaskTel maintains an Emergency Operations Centre, which can be activated to take control of both internal and external situations.

SaskTel has developed Corporate Administrative Procedures that relate to disaster recovery plans and procedures. These procedures are backed by our on-call certified vendors and partners, and are designed to facilitate service continuity and operations compatibility.