SAN MATEO, Calif., Feb. 26, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- AtHoc, Inc., the leader in network-centric interactive crisis communication systems, today announced it has completed the implementation of VCE Vblock Systems to support global customer demand in the large enterprise market as well as from large homeland security and defense customers.

Reliability, capacity and speed are mission critical for AtHoc's data centers, which support cloud-based (SaaS) services for the AtHoc Interactive Warning System (AtHoc IWS), a next generation crisis communication system. Recognized as best-in-class for carrier-grade technology, Vblock Systems give AtHoc a pre-integrated, pre-tested and pre-validated converged infrastructure with end-to-end vendor accountability. Furthermore, the new architecture immediately quadruples AtHoc Cloud's capacity, providing up to seven times faster throughput for customers' security and safety needs.

Customers use AtHoc's Cloud Service (ACS) both as a stand-alone service and as part of AtHoc's unique "hybrid-cloud architecture," whereby components of its solutions reside behind the firewall of an organization and others on ACS.

With this expansion and technology upgrade, ACS can now reach millions of additional customers with sufficient scale to support the largest organizations in the world, including the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security and large global enterprises.

The move also enables "hot growth" scalability to support AtHoc's rapid expansion. With Vblock Systems, the data center can add capacity in just hours without rebuilding and with no downtime. It also provides an additional level of privacy and data security for AtHoc's clients with its tested and certified secure multi-tenant architecture. AtHoc is highly secure, compliant with NIST SP 800-53 and the data centers with SSAE16 SOC 1 Type 2 and LEED certifications.

"We commit to our customers by investing in their success," said Sanjay Saini, AtHoc vice president of operations. "This is a highly strategic expansion of our infrastructure and capacity, and it is essential to our growth across all segments of our global customer base, such as global 1000 enterprises, large health systems, strategic industrial infrastructure, defense and homeland security. With this new data center architecture, customers know that we can scale to support any size and growth, all in an environment that is fully integrated, tested and secure to comply with strict security standards."

The AtHoc IWS solution uses the IP network to bring interactive communications capabilities to organizations. Warning messages can be sent to all personnel with the push of a button using any combination of sirens, radios, computer desktop pop-up alerts, instant messages, digital signs, texts, emails, VoIP audio/visual phones, mobile or smartphones and more. Rich media content—photos, videos and maps—can be shared among personnel, emergency teams and first responders. Scalable and highly available voice telephony alerting capabilities are leveraging Cisco Unified Communications Manager as a multi-path architecture.

About AtHoc

AtHoc is the recognized leader, innovator and trusted partner in network-centric interactive crisis communication systems. AtHoc's products are used for physical security, employee protection, personnel accountability, staff recall and regulatory compliance for military, homeland security, government, healthcare, industrial and commercial organizations.

Millions of end-users worldwide rely on AtHoc's unified notification systems for their emergency alerting and critical communication needs in organizations such as Microsoft, Eastman Chemical, USS-POSCO Industries, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Baylor Scott & White Health, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (WRNMMC), UCLA, U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

AtHoc was recently awarded Government Security News' (GSN) award for Best Mass Notification System and has also been recognized by Gartner, Inc. as a leader in its Magic Quadrant for Emergency Mass Notification Services and by IHS Inc. as The Fastest Growing Mass Notification Software Supplier. For more information about AtHoc, please visit www.athoc.com.