Recent events prompt data-security worries

This is a busy time of year in the data-protection business.Cris Freiwald has been getting lots of calls lately from companies worried about business interruptions and the safety of information.The main cause for concern isn't the series of earthquake-provoked disasters in Japan or military battles in countries just as Libya. The threat is local and seasonal, and though predictable, it after all catches some businesses unprepared.

"The phone calls coming to us are because the rivers are rising. I get calls every day," said Freiwald, who sells business-continuity services. "It's flooding that gets people calling in this part of the country."Freiwald is the vice president and general manager of the northern region of CoSentry, an Omaha-based company that operates data centers in Sioux Falls; Kansas City, Mo.; and two in the Omaha area.

CoSentry's services range from providing backup work stations - complete with phones and computers - to security services for companies' cyber data. Some companies lease space to store computers that back up important data. Increasingly, but, customers are moving toward the cloud-computing option of leasing capacity on CoSentry computers.The Sioux Falls center occupies part of a former Gateway building in northeastern Sioux Falls. It shares the building with a Lewis Drug warehouse.CoSentry promotes itself as the second-largest data center in South Dakota. It trails the super-low-profile Automated Data Processing center in northwestern Sioux Falls.

The difference between CoSentry

The difference between CoSentry and ADP is that CoSentry provides services that help other companies protect data and business operations. The recently expanded ADP center protects data related to payroll services that ADP provides customers on a national basis.CoSentry started its Sioux Falls operation in 2005 with a single anchor client: CNA Surety. Now it has 71 customers. Most of them rent space for computer co-location.

The data center as well is a landlord. It leases secure office space to Cajana, which provides innovation services to institutions just as universities.Qwest recently connected its high-capacity, fiber network to all four CoSentry data centers in the region. That was a big deal for local and national business appeal, Freiwald said.Regional providers Midcontinent Communications and SDN Communications as well have data systems tied into the center.

Part of the center is being remodeled to accommodate a Colorado-based financial-service business that will be moving in equipment. The company will occupy 42 of CoSentry's present inventory of 106 computer cabinets, each of which stands seven feet high.As the use of research expands in commerce, a growing number of businesses have data vulnerable to human attack as so then as national disasters.

Many of the recent calls to CoSentry have come from flood-worried areas in Minnesota and North Dakota. Freiwald expects a similar rush of flood-related phone calls again then and there year.A lot of companies vowed to be more prepared this year, afterwards last year's flooding problems, Freiwald said. "Nevertheless they weren't."Business behavior to all appearances isn't much different than human nature. Procrastination often prevails.