VISI Debuts MN's Largest Locally Owned Data Center.

Open House Showcases Company's Expanded Data Management and Security Capabilities

MINNEAPOLIS -- On Thurs., Nov. 2, VISI will celebrate the opening of its significantly expanded St. Paul data center with a huge event, Data Center 2.0. The 11,000 square-foot data center is the Twin Cities' largest locally owned commercial facility. The RSVP event is open to the public and will feature educational sessions on leading edge technology products and trends, facility tours, food, drinks, prizes, and entertainment. A ribbon cutting ceremony with Saint Paul Mayor Chris Coleman and the Saint Paul Chamber of Commerce is also scheduled at 4 p.m. The event will be held at the data center at 180 East Fifth Street in downtown St. Paul.

"The growth and expansion of businesses in St. Paul, particularly in the technology sector, is a noteworthy achievement in our city," said Mayor Coleman. "VISI is a great example of that and a strong asset to our business community."

The grand opening marks another significant milestone since last December when VISI was acquired by Digital North. VISI has just become the only Twin Cities ISP to have obtained SAS 70 certification, a regulated audit process. In July, the company continued its history of innovation by launching ViaWiki, a new Web-based collaboration technology. Staff has grown from 38 to 50 employees.

"It's been a great year for both VISI and our customers. The data center upgrade and expansion is hugely important. It allows totally redundant power and on-site staff to offer advanced hands-on services that further safeguard our customers' business operations 24 hours a day, every day," says VISI CEO Mike Sowada.

The SAS 70 certification for colocation and managed hosting services is a widely recognized and regulated audit that assures an organization meets or exceeds standards for control activities, which generally include controls over information technology, security and related processes. SAS 70 reports have become a valuable tool for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance and other audit-related purposes.

Earlier this year, VISI launched ViaWiki. A relatively new technology, a wiki is a Web site that anyone can create and edit quickly and easily using a Web browser. With ViaWiki customers can instantly create a Web site, share pages, edit content, track changes, collaborate with coworkers, friends or family, upload and download filesaall without knowing HTML.

"Wikis, like the tremendously successful wikipedia, are sometimes credited with democratizing the Web in terms of content development," says Gary Elfert, Director of Sales and Marketing at VISI. "We've taken that a step further by making our wiki product even easier to use so essentially anybody who wants to create Web content can get started immediately using ViaWiki."

Perhaps the greatest accomplishment is the newly completed St. Paul data center expansion, which includes more than 1,000 square feet of additional raised floor server space and 4,000 square feet of office space, and state-of-the-art equipment for managed services. This expansion allows VISI to meet increased demand from customers and their growing businesses. An additional 15-ton HVAC unit and 225kVa UPS have been added to handle continued growth and customer's mission-critical uptime requirements.

"VISI's new data center is a state-of-the-art facility featuring managed hosting and colocation equipment that's designed for the highest levels of performance, fault tolerance and disaster recovery," said Bill Kish, CEO of San Jose, CA based Coyote Point Systems. "We are very proud that VISI partnered with Coyote Point Systems to meet its customers' most demanding requirements."

The new space also includes an expanded Network Operations Center (NOC), making room for three newly hired hosting engineers. Several support and engineering team members will be moving to the St. Paul data center to increase the level of service and support VISI is able to deliver.

The Data Center 2.0 event on Nov. 2 will feature presentations by the following industry leaders: TopRank Online Marketing, MindTouch, Coyote Point and Shavlik. Individuals interested in attending the free event can register and view a complete schedule at www.visi.com/dc20.

About VISI:

VISI is Minnesota's largest locally owned Internet Solutions Provider offering connectivity, consulting and managed hosting services. VISI serves more than 11,000 business and residential customers throughout Minnesota. The company provides a full range of robust Web and application hosting services, first-rate Internet services and support, colocation services, and personal, expert advice.

To learn more about VISI, call 612-395-9000 or visit www.visi.com.

To arrange media interviews with Mike Sowada, contact Paul Jongeward at 952.853.9555, ext. 103 or [e-mail]. To review an online media kit, visit http://home.visi.com/mediakit.