BlueBridge, Bluemile link to extend cloud reach

BlueBridge Networks and Bluemile, two Ohio-based data center operators and cloud service providers, have announced a multimillion-dollar joint investment to collaborate on delivering cloud services to enterprises.

BlueBridge is based in Cleveland and BlueMile is based in Columbus. The collaboration is driven in part by the two companies’ aim to deliver more reliability by providing geographic diversity of their respective data centers.

“Cleveland and Columbus are on two different power grids and offer 127 miles of geographic diversity,” said Kevin Goodman, managing direct of business development and a partner with BlueBridge Networks. “It’s a business continuity play.”

The collaboration also increases the number of fiber providers the two companies can use to support their services, Goodman said. “Before Bluemile we had seven carriers in a carrier-neutral facility,” he said. “Now we have entrée to more than 200 carriers. That allows us to go far and wide like the big-boxes and deliver enterprise-class services. A deeper, wider telco is as important to the cloud as the cloud is to the telco.”

The two smaller providers’ efforts to be bigger also points to an important trend: By remaining smaller and more customer-focused but taking steps to provide more far-reaching service, BlueBridge and Bluemile can provide the more intimate customer service of a smaller company with the reach of a larger company.

“In big boxes, you don’t know where your data is,” Goodman said. “With us, you do. There’s accountability. We have the ability to be a true augmentation of the staff.”

Both companies also pointed out the significance of keeping business—and jobs—in the Ohio region and supporting regional technology growth and economic development.