Posted 9:47 pm Sunday, November 29, 2009
In The Works: TylerVault.com Offers Secure Location For Backup Data
By BRIAN PEARSON
Business Editor
Below the Bank of America in downtown Tyler, Tommy Martin has been working on what he hopes will become the community's Fort Knox for sensitive information.
Business Editor
Below the Bank of America in downtown Tyler, Tommy Martin has been working on what he hopes will become the community's Fort Knox for sensitive information.
Martin is setting up his business, TylerVault.com, in what was once a heavily fortified bank vault. When it opens Tuesday, it will be the first data center of its kind in the Tyler.
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The center will host and maintain systems and backup systems for users large and small, said Martin, who spent the last 13 years in network security and design for a local bank.
"There's been a need for a secure facility," he said. "Tyler really doesn't have good public hosting for servers."
Martin said small businesses can use the 1,100-square-foot center for primary or backup hosting. It also would be ideal as a backup for larger customers such as hospitals and governmental entities, he said.
Tommy Martin shows Chris Wynn, Tom Mullins and Jonas Titas the Biometric Hand Vascular Reader on the outside of the vault door.
Renovating the vault -- enclosed with 18-inch-thick concrete walls with 1-inch-diameter steel rods spaced no more than 4 inches apart -- proved challenging, said Martin, 49, a Big Sandy native and Tyler Junior College graduate.
The facility, which will have two employees, needed additional air conditioning and electrical outlets, which required using a diamond-tipped drill bit to bore through the walls, he said.
"We had to put a lot of additional air conditioning in here," he said.
Tom Mullins, Tyler Economic Development Council president and CEO, said the facility will meet a longtime community need.
"I think it's tremendous," Mullins said. "We have been trying to attract some data-center developers to this market for a couple of years. The ones we talked to, particularly in the Dallas area, either don't want to come to this area or want to make a smaller investment."
Mullins said the center will appeal to users for backup and primary purposes.
"I can think of local companies that need data center options," he said. "They want to have a safe backup for their data. Companies and organizations are constantly looking for some redundancy that's separate from their operations so if there's a disaster, they'll be able to switch over to the backup."
Curious about a construction project or upcoming new business? Contact Business Editor Brian Pearson at bpearson@tylerpaper.com or 903-596-6280.
