Another 9 L.L.C.”™s greatest asset may lie 1 1/2 stories below ground, but the height of its growth is somewhere in the clouds.
Dublin-based Network Recovery recently invested an undisclosed amount into the Tarrytown managed service provider. The Irish technology company specializes in disaster recovery and managed cloud services.
“It gives us a footprint and the capital to expand geographically in the states here,” said James Oliverio, CEO of Another 9. “Our strategy is a multi-prong approach ”“ both facilities and looking at other companies that lend synergies to our business plan to grow, both organically as well as through acquisition.”
Another 9 occupies 13,000 square feet at The Landmark at Eastview. This includes office space and, below, an earthen data center, a reinforced-concrete seismic slab bunker designed for former tenant Union Carbide Corp. and constructed by IBM Corp. in the 1970s.
“In my prior career, I used to have data centers on the 15th floor, on the 50th floor, in skyscrapers, so it”™s kind of unique to be underground,” Oliverio said. “You”™re a few degrees cooler. Think about a basement. Energy-wise, it helps keep our facility nice and cool.”
Formerly a chief information officer for investment banks and a global head of corporate finance and IT for UBS Warburg, Oliverio subsequently founded IdeaBox, a provider of IT products and services for the financial industry.
In 2005, “I brought my company from IdeaBox into what was Savvy Networks at the time, essentially purchasing their assets,” he said. “Within a year, we recapitalized and releveraged IdeaBox, renaming it Another 9.”
The company primarily services the financial and insurance sectors, industries where “information technology is critical.”
Company consolidation and the online data surplus have made health care companies a particularly strong area of growth.
“The security of the information ”“ a lot of these health care companies don”™t have the facilities nor the capability of technical expertise to maintain it going forward,” Oliverio said. “So we have a number of initiatives of those companies consulting with us to host their stuff here as well as to assist them as they design out their networks.”
In its infancy, Another 9 was more of a “gatekeeper,” described by Oliverio as a “Westie”™s Warehouse for technology.” A series of tech-partnerships ensued and the company began introducing things like replication services and email hosting.
“We”™re certainly looking to acquire companies,” Oliverio said. “We are looking at companies we think add synergy. ”¦We”™re not looking to merge with anyone.”
Job forecast in the IT-sector
When Another 9 and Network Recovery formalized an investment agreement after a longstanding partnership, the employment count grew to some 55 people between the two companies. Industry-wide, network systems and data communications analysts were ranked No. 2 on the Top 30 list of the fastest-growing occupations from 2008 to 2018, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
According to the latest Pace SkillProof IT Index, in Westchester demand for network systems and data communications analysts was almost double that of the first quarter, while computer support specialists was a third higher. On the low side, both system analysts and system software engineers declined by more than 30 percent.
In Manhattan, demand for IT managers was up 9 percent, followed by network and computer systems administrators, which were up 7 percent. Employment dropped for system software engineers, down 13 percent and for database administrators, down 12 percent.
