Web host ditches 11 N. Pearl St. for former Adelphia data center.

Web hosting company ActiveHost Corp. has moved its servers out of 11 N. Pearl St. in Albany and into Adelphia Business Solutions' $2.3 million data center at 194 Washington Ave.

Adelphia Business Solutions said in November it would no longer be providing telecommunications services in Albany and Rochester. Adelphia, of Coudersport, Pa., had operations and a switching center at 194 Washington Ave.

It was once a subsidiary of Adelphia Communications Corp., which is under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection amid fraud charges against founder and former chairman John Rigas and two sons, Timothy and Michael.

ActiveHost is renting the new data center from Conley Realty Associates Ltd., the owner of the building.

The data center provides enough back-up power to keep the 6,000 Web-site clients of ActiveHost up and running for a month without refueling, said Alex Finn, president and CEO of the Schenectady-based company.

The data center has a 2,200-gallon, 350-kilowatt diesel generator and redundant battery plant located in a 20- by-267-foot room filled with dozens of batteries that could run the network if a prolonged blackout ever happened, Finn said.

The batteries are bolted to a steel platform to keep them in place in the case of an earthquake.

The data center also has two 30-ton air-conditioning systems and a third, smaller, standby system to cool the network, as well as three fire-suppression systems that displace oxygen, killing any fire and saving the costly equipment.

Finn said the company was "prepared for anything."

Now that ActiveHost is in the 5,100-square-foot data center, the company plans to go after new customers who want to locate their servers at ActiveHost's center. ActiveHost also is starting what Finn called a "business continuity" service. Companies could back up their information at the data center in real-time and operate out of the data center if other offices were closed because of a catastrophe.

"Since 9/11, companies have been almost mandated to look at solutions such as this--to have an outside facility where they can maintain operations," Finn said. "We could offer a small office with a computer and telephone for an official of a company to come to this facility and maintain the critical operations."

The company can also host health-related sites because the data center is compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. HIPAA, which health care providers had to comply with by April 14, spells out how and when medical information is made available to patients and caregivers. It requires health care providers to inform patients of their privacy policies and prevents providers from disclosing personal information about patients, except for treatment or payment purposes.

ActiveHost got its start in 1996. Finn was working at a staffing company during the day and tinkering with a $7,000 computer server on his dining table at night.

ActiveHost reported revenue of $900,000 last year and expects to close this year with revenue of $1.3 million.

"Finn said most of the customers the company hosts, including General Motors and German airline Lufthansa, have e-commerce sites.

Finn said the company hosts an additional 30 to 40 Web sites each week.

The data center move follows the company's recent headquarters move to the Stockade neighborhood from its Union Street office, where the company had been since 1999.

A ribbon-cutting to celebrate the opening of the new office is scheduled for Sept. 17.

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