Canadian data center service provider Q9 recently opened a new data center in the Calgary area. The facility is the company's third and also its largest in the region.

"Calgary is a strategic market where we have invested more than $90 million since 2002," Q9 CEO Osama Arafat said in a statement. "We are committed to meeting the growing needs of our customers in all the geographies we serve and this data center is a significant part of Q9's continuing program of expansion."

Arafat said in an interview that the company has seen significant growth in the Calgary market since it opened its first data center there at the end of 2002. Q9 opened its second facility in the area in 2007 and both are currently approaching full capacity.

Key growth driver in the region is demand from the oil and gas industry.

First phase (about 1.8 MW) of the new data center - a $50-million investment - has a capacity to hold 1,200 cabinet equivalents. At the time of the announcement earlier this week it was 38 percent full. The facility will be able to support more than 10,000 cabinet equivalents at full build-out.

The company provides colocation, bandwidth and managed services, including installation, server monitoring and management, firewalls, load-balancing, backup and restore. Its service level agreements guarantee 100-percent power and network availability.