IDC MarketScape Recognizes Cogeco Data Services as a Major Player in Canadian Public IaaS Market

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - March 26, 2015) - Cogeco Data Services, a Canadian provider of fully managed hybrid ICT solutions, has been recognized as a Major Player in the IDC MarketScape Canadian Public IaaS 2015 Vendor Assessment (IDC #CA1SSC15, February 2015).

The IDC MarketScape report emphasizes Cogeco Data Services' ability to provide a full spectrum of infrastructure management capabilities to support hybrid cloud environments, its network capabilities and the quality of its data centres.

"Cogeco Data Services is focused on providing enterprises with secure, flexible ICT solutions that meet their business requirements - we are delighted to be recognized by the IDC MarketScape as a Major Player in Public IaaS," said Susan Verma, Director, Product Development, Cogeco Data Services. "Our clients have indicated that security, compliance and data residency are important components when selecting a cloud solution. We have worked hard to deliver our Public Cloud IaaS with these requirements in mind and have integrated multi-hypervisor selection for dev/test and production workloads, high performance storage IOPS, and geo-redundancy for core business applications. The offering also includes guaranteed Canadian data residency and integrated security - all wrapped in an easy-to-use self-service customer portal."

According to the report, Cogeco Data Services' data centre, infrastructure and network capabilities and its focus on working with the customer to design single point ICT solutions contributed to IDC's favourable evaluation of the Company.

"The Canadian Public IaaS market has evolved to favour players with the ability to provide excellent quality of service and robust security and network capabilities," said Mark Schrutt, Research Vice President, Services and Enterprise Applications, IDC Canada. "Cogeco Data Services is well-aligned with these customer needs and has positioned itself as a Major Player in the Canadian Public IaaS market. The ability to provide hybrid cloud environments with a full spectrum of flexible infrastructure management services and geo-redundant Canadian data centres is a strategic advantage for the company."

IDC forecasts the Canadian market for IaaS to be $609 million in 2015, of which Public IaaS is expected to be $194 million and Private IaaS to be $415. The combined Canadian IaaS market is expected to grow to $1,216 million by 2018, with a CAGR of 42.5% for Public IaaS and a CAGR of 20.5% for Private IaaS between 2014 and 2018⁽¹⁾.

Earlier in March, Cogeco Data Services launched Canada's first geo-redundant, multi-hypervisor public cloud IaaS that provides customers with the freedom to choose between enterprise-class virtualization environments, including Microsoft's Hyper-V and VMware's vSphere platforms.

Cogeco Data Services' Public IaaS offering provides customers with a Virtual Data Centre (VDC) for on-demand compute, storage and backup services. Delivered on the industry's leading next-generation FlexPod infrastructure (a reference cloud architecture developed in partnership with Cisco, NetApp, VMware and Microsoft), VDC offers the security, control and performance characteristics of an enterprise private data centre, while also providing the cost elasticity and scalability benefits of the public cloud. The VDC is hosted on a high availability multi-tenant platform within data centres that are owned and operated by Cogeco Data Services and designed to tier 3 standards, and backed by industry-leading service-level agreements.

Cogeco Data Services was also recognized as a Major Player in the IDC MarketScape: Canadian Dedicated Private IaaS 2014 Vendor Assessment⁽²⁾.

About IDC MarketScape: IDC MarketScape vendor analysis model is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of ICT (information and communications technology) suppliers in a given market. The research methodology utilizes a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria that results in a single graphical illustration of each vendor's position within a given market. IDC MarketScape provides a clear framework in which the product and service offerings, capabilities and strategies, and current and future market success factors of IT and telecommunications vendors can be meaningfully compared. The framework also provides technology buyers with a 360-degree assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and prospective vendors.

About Cogeco Data Services

With its suite of ICT solutions (Data Centre, Managed IT, Private and Public Cloud IaaS, Connectivity, Voice and Professional Services), Cogeco Data Services supplies its customers with the fast, reliable and secure ability to access, manage, move and store large amounts of data worldwide. The Company's 'always on', tier 3 quality data centres and reliable, redundant network provide some of Canada's largest companies and public sector organizations with near limitless bandwidth and secure facilities for hosting, storing and managing mission critical data.

For more information about Cogeco Data Services, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cogeco Cable Inc., visit www.CogecoData.com, or connect with us on LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube. Cogeco Cable Inc.'s subordinate voting shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX:CCA).

(1) IDC, Canadian Public IT Cloud Services 2014-2018 Forecast (IDC # CA3CCS14, December 2014)

(2) IDC, IDC MarketScape: Canadian Dedicated Private Infrastructure as a Service 2014 Vendor Assessment (IDC #CA1SSC14, March 2014)