This year will undoubtedly go down in the history books as one we will never forget. While 2020 has had its share of challenges, DRFortress has tried to go above and beyond to help Hawaii businesses navigate the rough waters.
As we look forward to the year ahead, we’re reflecting on our company milestones and achievements in 2020 as we continue to drive DRFortress’ mission of being Hawaii’s Premier Digital Hub with the largest and ONLY carrier-neutral data center, colocation facility, and cloud marketplace operating in Hawaii.
Despite the pandemic, DRFortress worked fiercely to expand its services to support customers that needed to meet their business online connectivity needs with next-generation solutions. From adding DRFortress Cloud Connect, Hawaii’s only dedicated on-ramp to public clouds, to increase the network capacity for our DRFConnect service, a bandwidth accelerator solution with one simple connection, and commencing the build-out and expansion of our state-of-the-art data center, DRFortress continues to be a leader in technology by investing heavily in the Hawaii market.
Here is a recap of DRFortress’ Top 10 Highlights in 2020:
1. GI Partners Invests in DRFortress We started off the year with an exciting partnership with GI Partners, a leading private investment firm. This investment is enabling DRFortress to accelerate growth and increase resiliency while maintaining our excellent customer service. The GI Partners alliance will continue to accelerate our timeline to make Hawaii a major digital hub and further advance the technology economy in the Pacific region.
2. DRFortress COVID-19 Response DRFortress responded swiftly to COVID-19 as a Hawaii leader with detailed communications to maintain the company’s number one priority, which is the safety of staff and customers while continuing to provide uninterrupted mission-critical technology to support the business and emergency communication infrastructure of Hawaii and the Pacific.
3. DRFortress Strengthens Board Of Directors With Appointment Of Hawaii Telecommunications, Financial Industry Veteran DRFortress appointed Eric Yeaman to the DRFortress board of directors. The veteran telecommunications and financial executive was brought onto the board to strengthen DRFortress’ strategic growth initiatives and expansion of service offerings in Hawaii. Mr. Yeaman will play a critical role in DRFortress expanding those capabilities for the benefit of Hawaii’s businesses and residents.
4. DRFortress Begins Expansion On World-Class Data Center In Hawaii This year, DRFortress launched a major expansion project to its existing data center campus in Honolulu. The strategic expansion is driven by a surge in customer demand for connectivity, cloud, and CDN services throughout Hawaii and the Pacific. Construction is already underway on 130 cabinets to the existing data center infrastructure, creating a total of 600 cabinets for lease and a space of 55,000 square feet. Upon completion, DRFortress will expand on its role as the largest data center in Hawaii, providing exponentially more, and immediately available, space, power, and environmental controls than any other local supplier.
5. DRFortress Helps Hawaii Businesses Protect Critical IT Infrastructure During Hurricane Season In support of its island businesses, DRFortress released a Hurricane Preparedness Guide with recommendations to ensure business continuity and the protection of critical infrastructure and physical assets – all while keeping employees safe. We are committed to helping the Hawaiian business community prepare and have peace of mind, not only during hurricane season but year-round. The guide features tips to protect your company’s critical data and infrastructure before, during, and after the storm, complete with employee training, emergency kit recommendations, and printable hurricane preparedness checklists. Click here to download yours and get a jump start before the next hurricane season.
6. DRFortress Team Expansion As DRFortress continued to grow in 2020, we added key members to our sales team to serve our valued customers. Tommy Clement and Randall Sebastian joined our sales team that is committed to being customer-first and providing a strategic consultative approach to enabling Hawaii businesses to grow and scale with today’s digital demands.
7. DRFortress Launched a New Website DRFortress refreshed our website to accelerate digital transformations and customer experiences in Hawaii. We debuted our ultra-modern site that signals our company’s commitment to meet the needs of our clients with next-generation solutions so they can focus on their core business.
8. DRFortress Offers Hawaii’s Only Cloud Migration On-Ramp To Public Clouds This year DRFortress launched the first cloud direct connection from Hawaii into Equinix Cloud Exchange Fabric® (ECX Fabric®) on Platform Equinix®. The DRFortress Cloud Connect is a high-speed, secure, direct connection from the DRFortress data center in Hawaii to the ECX Fabric location in Los Angeles and Silicon Valley. Hawaii businesses are now able to extend their global reach and access the world’s largest cloud providers, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Google Cloud, and other clouds, network, and content service providers via a single port. DRFortress Cloud Connect delivers lower latency, improved network performance, and significant network connectivity cost savings by utilizing one single Layer 2 network circuit for both high-speed connectivity from 1G to 10G service and a simple cross-connection to any public cloud. DRFortress is proud to be the first provider in Hawaii to offer this cutting-edge cloud solution.
9. DRFortress Expanded our Bandwidth Accelerator Solution for Hawaii Businesses with One Simple Connection. We know that a fast and reliable connection to the internet is vital to your business. That’s why DRFortress partnered with multiple local carriers and telecom providers to expand and increase the capacity and resiliency of DRFConnect – a solution that allows businesses to accelerate their internet bandwidth capabilities and improve reliability and security for their network connectivity and mission-critical functions. With DRFConnect as your primary or redundant connectivity solution, your business will experience significant network cost savings, improved network performance, and increased productivity and reliability.
10. DRFortress Celebrates 14 Years Serving Hawaii Businesses Although we couldn’t come together and celebrate this 14th-year milestone, we want to thank all our customers, channel partners and vendors that have made the past 14 years possible. Thank you for your business, trust and support! For 14 years, our company has been meeting the data center needs of Hawaii’s enterprises, content companies, system integrators, carriers, wireless service providers, cable companies and ISPs. We are proud to provide customers customized high-end, resilient, reliable, environmental-friendly, next-generation solutions to meet their data-intensive business requirements, enabling them to focus on their core business. As Hawaii’s Digital Hub and largest business network, DRFortress houses the densest concentration of IP carriers and networks in Hawaii and is the only commercial Internet Exchange in the state to provide flexibility, cost-efficiency, and scalability for customers. Our world-class data center facility is located well outside the island’s extended flood and tsunami zones, ensuring your mission-critical data and systems are well-protected and your business’ IT operations are uninterrupted during an emergency or natural disaster.
DRFortress is extremely proud and encouraged by our growth in 2020, and we are continuing our investment in technology to support Hawaii businesses and mission-critical communications. Stay tuned for more DRFortress developments in 2021! Keep up-to-date on everything DRFortress by following us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or DRFortress.com.