TRAVERSE CITY -- Business owners who fear losing computer records to fire, flood or theft may be able to protect that data, thanks to a Traverse City firm's high-tech system.
Ironkeep Technologies, an eight-year-old computer technology firm founded by former Northwestern Michigan College students Zachary Schneider and Albert Steed, offers a one-of-a-kind service that uses fiber optic technology to provide clients the security of having their data stored remotely at Ironkeep's network operating center.
"In the event of a computer failure, such as a natural disaster, human error, virus attack, equipment failure, or more, our client's data is stored on Ironkeep's remote backup server," said Schneider. "Should a failure occur in the client's primary server at their office, the client can take the backup server from our site to their office and be up and running in minutes."
The system continuously backs up a client's data, storing it on a server located in a 100-square foot, climate-controlled room that features round-the-clock security monitoring. The room is tucked in a corner of Ironkeep's two-story corporate headquarters in the renovated furnace room of the Tru Fit Trousers building on Woodmere Avenue.
Not only does Ironkeep's backup service furnish clients with security, it also provides confidentiality. Clients include law firms and other businesses that compile records that must remain private.
"We want people to know that Traverse City has a tech center where they can put their data where it's safe and secure," said Steed.
In addition to the data backup service, Ironkeep provides many other computer services to its clients, including Web site development, consulting, hosting, application development, networking, storage and research.
In its infancy, the company focused on e-mail security and spam filtering. They wrote their own software that not only reduced spam, but improved e-mail efficiency.
"Spam grew out of control, so we developed and implemented spam filters for our clients," said Steed. "We read and researched everything we could about e-mail. We probably know more about e-mail than any firm in the state."
Schneider and Steed met at NMC about a decade ago. In 2000 they launched Ironkeep.
"We started with $3,000 and a bunch of old computers," recalled Schneider. "Things were slow at first. We were living on $1,000 a month for over three years. But every time we were about to give up, something good happened."
Traverse City enjoyed a technology mini-boom in the 1990s that saw the emergence of several locally based Internet Service Providers, but then the trend fizzled. Ironkeep is now the only local ISP in Traverse City.
"At one time there were several small ISPs in the Traverse City area," said Steed. "But eventually they were all bought out by national firms or died during the dot com thing. Now, nobody else in town does it."
Schneider and Steed are making plans to expand their operation, while remaining in the Tru-Fit Trousers Building. They hope to develop a regional data center and eventually build a 2,000-square foot, climate-controlled secure room to house servers for their growing list of clients.
"We really like the idea of re-using this structure," said Schneider. "My great grandmother sold pants here. It's part of us."
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