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Long before the events of Sept. 11 gave new meaning to the word "security," Savvis Communications Corp. Chief Executive Rob McCormick knew highly reliable, secure data centers would be critical in the future.
He turned to Phil Horstmann, founder of Ascent Corp., a St. Louis firm that helps companies build and manage data systems nationwide. That was in 1998, the year Horstmann started Ascent, which was then called Pillar Inc.
"McCormick was talking back then about terrorism and intellectual property," Horstmann said.
So Horstmann got to work finding the best security systems he could for the $50 million Savvis Hosting Center, developed to capitalize on the growing demand of national financial service providers for a super-safe haven to store and access mission-critical data around the clock. Because Savvis is not in the facilities management business, Ascent also staffs the hosting center, which has been open less than a year, McCormick said.
"It's been called by many analysts the best high-end data center of all data centers in the U.S.," he said.
Savvis generates income by leasing computer server rack space to industry brokerage, banking and on-line trading companies. The center has 25 customers that spend a total of about $500,000 a month on Savvis'...