IBM Smarter Data Centre Opens in Canada

New Barrie, Ontario facility uses advanced modular and green design for
maximum efficiency to help organizations reduce costs and effectively
manage risk

TORONTO AND BARRIE, ON, Sept. 21, 2012 /CNW/ - IBM (NYSE: IBM), together with the Governments of Canada and Ontario and
the City of Barrie today unveiled one of the nation’s most advanced
computing facilities: the IBM Canada Leadership Data Centre. The Barrie, Ontario-based centre has been designed from the ground-up
with the latest advancements in energy efficient data centre
management, business continuity, resiliency, security and disaster
recovery services to help organizations efficiently manage growth while
reducing costs and securely mitigating risk.

The data centre represents a $90 million investment from IBM and will
establish 20 skilled jobs in Barrie, as a portion of the $175 million
IBM invested and 145 jobs created through the April 2012 launch of the IBM Canada Research and Development Centre network. In time, the new data centre is expected to provide key
infrastructure and personnel to help underpin ongoing research and
development initiatives tied to this network. The IBM funding is
supported through the Government of Ontario’s previous $15 million investment towards these initiatives.

“Canadian organizations are seeking more strategic ways to increase
operational efficiencies and position themselves for sustainable
growth,” said John Lutz, president, IBM Canada.  “We continue to invest
in smarter infrastructure within Canada because businesses can’t afford
downtime with today’s economic pressures. This new facility provides a
flexible foundation ingrained in best-practices so we can deliver
essential services to help organizations and partners better manage
data, reduce operating costs, improve productivity and gain competitive
advantage.”

Fifty percent of Canadian organizations recently surveyed reported that
providing sufficient data centre space and ensuring the availability
required to meet customer service demands are among their top
challenges.* This is particularly important for high availability
industries like financial services, government and retail. Yet,
organizations typically spend about 70 percent of their IT budgets
simply maintaining existing environments. In parallel, IDC estimates
the amount of information managed by enterprises will grow 50 times
over the next decade with the number of associated servers installed by
organizations increasing by 49 percent in the next two years.**

Leading organizations are taking steps to address these issues. In an IBM survey of 300 IT leaders, the 21% of organizations who ran efficient data
centres were able to spend 50% more on new projects and innovation to
make their organizations more successful.

The highly efficient, modular centre is uniquely designed to a set of
global best-practice metrics that best demonstrate productivity and
effectiveness in space, energy and data management These attributes
will help organizations adapt existing processes and infrastructure or
cost-effectively invest to more efficiently support business growth and
mitigate the risk of costly system outages.

For example, the centre will provide synchronous replication of data
with another centre that is within 100 kilometres. This means
organizations that rely on critical 24/7 systems can locate their
primary IT operations in one centre and establish a data recovery
centre far enough away to reduce the risk of a geographic disaster
impacting both sites, but close enough to ensure operational or
customer data is always available.

The new facility will provide 25,000 square feet of initial capacity
with the ability to grow to 100,000 square feet. IBM has designed and
delivered more than 1,000 similar modular data centres for customers worldwide. Modular data centre design uses small increments of standardized
components to match business requirements with IT requirements and only
add data centre capacity when needed. Modular centres can be expanded
in half the time of a traditional data centre to easily accommodate
growing demand. They help clients save up to 30 percent per year in energy costs compared to traditional
centres.

This newest addition to IBM’s existing network of 17 data centres within
Canada bolsters the company’s $75 million investment in Markham and
Montreal-based data centres during 2011.

Quotes

“It is with great pride that we welcome IBM’s Leadership Data Centre to
Barrie. To be selected as the global destination for the first newly
constructed Leadership Data Centre in North America is a tremendous
honour and sends the message globally that Barrie’s wealth of
competitive advantages make it a strategic business location in the new
economy,” comments Barrie Mayor Jeff Lehman.  “Barrie is open for business and we look forward to growing a
relationship of mutual benefit for both IBM and the Barrie community.”

“The progress of this unprecedented research partnership is wonderful to
see. This project will help to improve how we deal with challenges in
health care, infrastructure and cities, energy, and water conservation
while making use of Ontario’s greatest resource — our people,” said Brad Duguid, Minister of Economic Development and Innovation, Government
of Ontario.

“This Centre is designed to act as a catalyst for innovative
collaborations with researchers and businesses here in Barrie and
across southern Ontario,” said Patrick Brown, Member of Parliament for Barrie. “The advanced knowledge coming from the collaborative research and
innovation platform funded by our government will be a strategic asset
for Canada to advance home-grown innovation on the world stage.”

For Editors:

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        --  Photos http://bit.ly/OGJSAM
        --  Fact Sheet:

http://ibm.co/UdrmBr

        --  IBM Canada President, John Lutz Video:

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        --  IBM Canada, General Manager, Global Technology Services, Dave
            Drury Video:
            http://bit.ly/QowQXw and

http://bit.ly/UhYx70

*IDC Canada 2012 Data Centre Survey

** IDC WW Server Market Update: Server Workloads 2011 Research – Aug
2011 and IDC’s

Digital Universe Study, June 2011.

About IBM

For more information about the IBM Canada Leadership Data Centre, please
visit:

http://www.ibm.com/smarterdatacentre/ca

IBM Data Centre information may be found at:  www.ibm.com/services/siteandfacilities

More information about IBM’s Sustainability solutions:  www.ibm.com/green

SOURCE IBM Canada Ltd.

Video with caption: “Video: IBM, together with the Governments of Canada and Ontario and the City of Barrie today unveiled one of the nation’s most advanced computing facilities: the IBM Canada Leadership Data Centre.”. Video available at: http://stream1.newswire.ca/cgi-bin/playback.cgi?file=20120921_C8537_VIDEO_EN_18205.mp4&posterurl=http://photos.newswire.ca/images/20120921_C8537_PHOTO_EN_18205.jpg&clientName=IBM%20Canada%20Ltd%2E&caption=Video%3A%20IBM%2C%20together%20with%20the%20Governments%20of%20Canada%20and%20Ontario%20and%20the%20City%20of%20Barrie%20today%20unveiled%20one%20of%20the%20nation%27s%20most%20advanced%20computing%20facilities%3A%20the%20IBM%20Canada%20Leadership%20Data%20Centre%2E&title=IBM%20CANADA%20LTD%2E%20%2D%20IBM%20Smarter%20Data%20Centre%20Opens%20in%20Canada&headline=IBM%20Smarter%20Data%20Centre%20Opens%20in%20Canada

Video with caption: “Video: IBM, together with the Governments of Canada and Ontario and the City of Barrie today unveiled one of the nation’s most advanced computing facilities: the IBM Canada Leadership Data Centre.”. Video available at: http://stream1.newswire.ca/cgi-bin/playback.cgi?file=20120921_C8537_VIDEO_EN_18206.mp4&posterurl=http://photos.newswire.ca/images/20120921_C8537_PHOTO_EN_18206.jpg&clientName=IBM%20Canada%20Ltd%2E&caption=Video%3A%20IBM%2C%20together%20with%20the%20Governments%20of%20Canada%20and%20Ontario%20and%20the%20City%20of%20Barrie%20today%20unveiled%20one%20of%20the%20nation%27s%20most%20advanced%20computing%20facilities%3A%20the%20IBM%20Canada%20Leadership%20Data%20Centre%2E&title=IBM%20CANADA%20LTD%2E%20%2D%20IBM%20Smarter%20Data%20Centre%20Opens%20in%20Canada&headline=IBM%20Smarter%20Data%20Centre%20Opens%20in%20Canada