IL: EarthLink Opens New Chicago Data Center and Sales Office

As part of its nationwide IT services and data center network expansion, EarthLink, Inc., a leading IT services and communications provider, announced the opening of its newest data center located at 350 East Cermak Road, Chicago. EarthLink has also opened a new local sales office and is growing its employee base to fulfill business demand for its highly secure, comprehensive IT solutions including cloud hosting, Cloud Workspace, managed security, colocation, Cloud Server Backup and application solutions in the Chicago metro area.

To help demystify the Cloud for Chicago-area businesses, on Friday, May 31 EarthLink will hold a free 'Join the Cloud Evolution' seminar at Wrigley Field that showcases how services such as Cloud Hosting, Dedicated Exchange and Data Center Firewalls help businesses improve cost structures and mitigate risk. Industry experts from Cisco and NetApp will join EarthLink for this informational event introducing the new data center and EarthLink capabilities. Participants are then invited to attend a VIP tour of Wrigley and the Chicago Cubs game in a private suite.

Rick Kurtzbein, data center research analyst for 451 Research, recently toured one of EarthLink's new data centers and wrote, "The most successful infrastructure providers in the age of cloud have become so because they were opportunistic, agile and sensitive to the risks of overinvesting. In plain English, they buy low, sell high and go where the business is. EarthLink's investment in its own network and data center rollout shows that it understands this. We will watch with interest as the company rolls out its next-generation cloud services."

According to EarthLink Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing Michael D. Toplisek, opening a data center in Chicago is an important step in EarthLink's strategy to create a regionally-diverse, expanded IT solutions footprint to support the growing and evolving needs of companies as they seek to virtualize their businesses. "Chicago is at the heart of the Midwest business market and an important communications hub and distribution point for IP traffic," he noted. "Our robust, new Chicago data center leverages a state-of-the-art, integrated computing and storage platform with the power, space and cooling capacity necessary to scale to support current and future IT service demands."

Leveraging geographically-diverse data centers, EarthLink is creating fault-tolerant, enterprise class IT solutions with nationwide availability and high performing network connectivity. In addition to Chicago, last month EarthLink held a seminar event for businesses to celebrate the opening of the Dallas data center, and will hold similar seminars introducing the new data centers in San Jose and Miami in the coming months. These four new data centers, in addition to the existing center in Pittsford, NY, provide the company with a total of five data centers on its next generation cloud hosting platform. Combined with EarthLink's current data centers in Atlanta, Columbia, SC and Marlborough, MA, EarthLink will soon operate eight data centers linked to its nationwide IP network. Click here for a new video highlighting the business value of EarthLink's next-generation cloud platform in the data centers.

About EarthLink
EarthLink, Inc. (NASDAQ: ELNK) is a leading IT services and communications provider to more than 150,000 businesses and one million consumers nationwide. EarthLink empowers customers with managed services including cloud computing, managed and private cloud, and virtualization services such as managed hosting and cloud workspace. EarthLink also offers a robust portfolio of IT security, application hosting, colocation and IT support services. The company operates an extensive network spanning 29,421 route fiber miles with 90 metro fiber rings and 8 secure data centers providing ubiquitous nationwide data and voice IP service coverage across more than 90 percent of the country. Founded in 1994, EarthLink's award-winning reputation for outstanding service and product innovation is supported by an experienced team of professionals focused on best-in-class customer care. For more information, visit EarthLink's website at www.earthlink.net.