Events Calendar
In This Section
Day with Warren Buffett enriching to UA students
WISDOM FROM BILLIONAIRE WARREN BUFFETT
FedEx says IRS won't be imposing penalties
U.S. Walmarts to stay open Thanksgiving
WOMEN'S LEADERSHIP PROGRAM MAKES DEBUT
Regulators eyeing Ally Bank tactics
Number of females in unions increasing
Most Read Stories
Suitcase causes bomb scare at Akron bus terminal
Akron City Council OKs higher speed on I-77
Chapel Hill isn't rolling right along
Motorcyclist killed, wife injured in Stark County crash
New eateries expand menu of options
Man says he was punched, robbed by 3 people in parking lot
Patrick McManamon: Here's what the Browns should try the rest of the season
Louisville athlete commits to play for Boston College
Family found dead in Ohio home
Blogs:
Pets:
It Takes All Kinds
The Heldenfiles:
Tuesday Notebook
Patrick McManamon:
An interesting thought from a reader
Akron Zips:
Akron vs. Mount Union — Liveblog
Tribe Matters:
Indians announce spring dates
Cleveland Browns:
Mangini doesn't name a quarterback
Kent State Sports:
Flashes interested in another Cincinnati player
Cleveland Cavaliers:
Shaq: It’s All About Winning Championships
Buckeye Blogging:
Buckeyes Roll 100-60 / Season Outlook
Varsity Letters:
Report: Walsh baseball player commits
All Da King's Men:
More On The Fort Hood Jihadist
Blog of Mass Destruction:
Simply Incapable of Telling The Truth
Akron Law Café:
Health Care Financing Reform: (63) Commonwealth Fund Report on Primary Care
See Jane Style:
Muffle Your Muffler
Car Chase:
Clock Tender- Extending the Life of Collector Car Clocks
Let's Talk Real Estate:
Rumors: Akron Starbucks Closing
Ohio Travels with Betty:
Jack is looking for a trip to Southern Ohio the week of November 16.
Sound Check:
Aeromsith looking for new singer as Steven Tyler contemplates solo career
HRLite House:
Personal Rant – Why People Do Not Live in Northeast Ohio
Akron Gamer:
Video: 'Modern Warfare 2' hits the streets
Man creates technology that protects computers from all kinds of threats
By Carol Fletcher
Hackensack Record
Published on Sunday, Jul 13, 2008
Jerry Lyons says bring on hurricane-force winds, smoke and gas, explosions, high-pressure water, leaking water pipes or a disgruntled employee: His modular structures can take them.
Lyons, 49, is the idea man behind iFortress in West Paterson, N.J., designers and developers of metal-based assembled panels used to build multimillion-dollar computer data centers, the heart of a company's computing and telecommunications operations.
''We needed to create this technology that was comprehensive and (could withstand) multiple threats,'' such as fire, rain and smoke, Lyons said.
Since the company was formed in 2001, Lyons has been designing and testing panels that, when assembled as a room, would protect the equipment against a collapsing roof, burst water pipes, gas, fire and wind.
He came up with the idea while he was setting up stock-trading desks in Manhattan in 1999 and realized everyone's job depended on computers often housed in a building's most vulnerable places: basements, closets, under bathrooms and kitchens, where plumbing accidents and fires occur, or against exterior walls.
Lyons talked to his trading customers about their companies' data centers and discovered that events such as leaking toilets caused extensive computer damage and downtime losses. He also found other weak points in the construction of data centers: light switches that let in smoke and gas from a fire; dry wall that could be cut through.
Data centers use high-tech devices such as advanced retinal scanners, backup generators and digital firewalls to safeguard and protect the critical equipment inside. Lyons believed the designers overlooked the outer structure.
To describe what iFortress has developed, Lyons trademarked the phrase ''structural security'' to market his modular panel structures and took his idea to company executives and data center designers. ''It'd be the 'Aha!' factor,'' said Lyons, ''like we invented shoes when the whole world was barefoot.''
Lyons' timing is on the mark. The data center world is undergoing a major expansion, according to Digital Realty Trust Inc., which owns and manages corporate and Internet data centers internationally.
The company reported this spring that 86 percent of 300 U.S. companies that were surveyed plan to expand their data centers in the next year. The size planned this year for an average expansion has increased by 50 percent to 15,000 square feet in 2008 from 10,000 square feet in 2007, according to the survey, due primarily to disaster recovery and the federal Sarbanes-Oxley law that requires extensive filing of financial records.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency also is tracking the growth of the centers, and particularly the energy they use. In August 2007, the agency reported a surge in the market as the financial services, health care and retail industries shifted operations to computers and the Internet.
After self-funding the roots of iFortress, Lyons ran out of money around 2001 during a fire test on a panel. He turned to old friends Jack Pero, Jack's brother Banc and Joe Careri for capital, who now help run the company. The group formed what became iFortress.
Since then, iFortress has spent its time in product development, materials testing and market research after partnering with an engineering firm to help design the modular panel systems.
The 8- to 12-foot-tall panels have passed the toughest materials testing developed by the international standards organization, the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) for fire, water, weight, wind and bend, which tests for earthquakes.
Lyons describes a case study of an iFortress data center, built 90 feet underground and underneath a 25-foot fissure, that withstood a day-and-a-half-long deluge when the fissure filled with water after a heavy rainstorm.
iFortress trains data center builders on how to assemble the airtight, watertight and hermetically sealed modular structures. The advantage, says Lyons, is a crew of three can install a 3,000-square-foot facility in about five days, while conventional data centers can take to two to three months.
iFortress recently celebrated its survival of years of product testing and development and introduced three protective storage devices: one for computer racks, one for telecommunications lines and one that can sit on the back of tanker trucks.
Jerry Lyons says bring on hurricane-force winds, smoke and gas, explosions, high-pressure water, leaking water pipes or a disgruntled employee: His modular structures can take them.
Get the full article here.
