CEBU'S small and medium businesses may get into e-commerce without fear of losing data or being targeted in cyberattacks with the launch Tuesday, May 15, of a new data center of the PLDT Group.
The Vitro 2 became the second data center of telco and digital services provider PLDT to meet a growing demand for digital solutions for businesses in Cebu and throughout the Visayas. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) would not need huge capital expenditure to manage their massive amounts of information, PLDT officials said in a press conference at the Vitro 2. They only have to rent space in the data center that will handle storage, backup and recovery, data management and networking.
The data center could also empower SMEs to be like big companies and conduct e-commerce transactions with assurances of support in data privacy compliance, risk monitoring, and disaster recovery to protect them from the effects of man-made and natural calamities, officials of PLDT Group, ePLDT and PLDT Enterprise said.
In 2012, PLDT opened its Vitro 1 that is now nearly used up after companies rented rack space for their servers in the co-location facility.
Eric Alberto, PLDT Group executive vice president and ePLDT president, said they found SMEs to be "faster in adoption" of data centers. He said decision-making is faster in smaller companies and children of owners who may be running the businesses tend to be more digital and aware of the need to protect data.
The Vitro 2 in Cebu is equipped with a maximum of 800 racks, adding to ePLDT's current 8,300-rack capacity, a PLDT description of the data center said.
Each rack in the data center costs P54,000 a month with small businesses having the option to rent a minimum of one-third of the space and share the cost of the rack with other users, ePLDT Group chief technology officer David Simon said.
The P1-billion Vitro Data Center, located in Mandaue City, hopes to serve the increased data and ICT needs of not just the city's 10,000 industrial and commercial businesses but also the whole Cebu province which is known for shipping, furniture-making, tourism, business process outsourcing, and heavy industries, officials said.
"This new state-of-the-art facility is part of the PLDT Group's nationwide effort to support local organizations and enterprises of all sizes - helping them store, manage and safeguard mission-critical data from cybersecurity threats and physical disasters," Alberto said.
The second Cebu data center is the 10th in the Vitro network that covers key cities such as Makati, Pasig, Clark economic zone, and Davao. (Nini Cabaero)