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Grand Canyon U Adopts Colocated Data Center Service

Grand Canyon University, a private university located in Phoenix, AZ, has expanded its IT infrastructure with the addition of a colocated data center solution.

The university has been experiencing increased enrollment and expects that trend to continue over the coming years. To support this growth, the university needed to expand its data center and wanted to do so in a way that minimized its carbon footprint. Grand Canyon University selected ViaWest's Arizona data center to support its IT environment, so the university now has two primary data centers.

According to information from ViaWest, the Arizona data center has 42,500 square feet of raised floor capacity, independent backup components for redundancy, 5,400 kilowatts of uninterruptible power supply (UPS) capacity, more than 350 watts per square foot and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance.

The university plans to use the Arizona data center for its production environment and as a backup for its other data center. The new data center will support its online classes, student-facing portal, email, chat and constituent relationship management (CRM) software.

In addition to the data center, the university has also partnered with ViaWest to offer more curriculum options for computer science students. As part of that expanded curriculum, students work on advanced degree programs in computer science will have opportunities to complete internships through ViaWest and tour the data center facility.

About the Author

Leila Meyer is a technology writer based in British Columbia. She can be reached at [email protected].

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