Hybrid IT Solution Ensures Emergency Agencies Can Operate Effectively During Hazardous Material Incidents on Rail Lines

ViaWest, a leading provider of Hybrid IT Solutions and Colocation in North America, today announced that Fire Planning Associates (FPA) has selected the client-centric company as its hosting provider. Recently hired by Montgomery County, PA to provide critical infrastructure planning for hazardous material incidents on local rail lines, FPA relies on ViaWest to manage its cloud environment and keep its emergency preparedness platform running so it can focus on emergency planning.

FPA works with Montgomery County, PA and many organizations and municipalities around the world to provide pre-incident planning following NFPA standards, improve lines of communication and take the most modern approach possible to protect the lives of responders and civilians. FPA’s contract with Montgomery County includes identifying staging areas, mapping terrain and pinpointing vulnerable communities and practicing derailment response. FPA’s Blazemark® platform runs entirely in the cloud and requires security and access considerations, an environment ViaWest is uniquely qualified to fulfill.

“We’re in the business of saving lives and reducing the impact of major emergencies and incidents, so ensuring our app and servers are running is a matter of life or death,” said Barton Krauss, President, Fire Planning Associates. “When our app went down with a previous hosting company, a ViaWest customer referred us to ViaWest to get the situation resolved quickly and we decided to move our entire platform to their servers. In our high-risk, high-reward business model, I know that relying on ViaWest gives me one less thing to worry about.”

FPA wanted a more reliable and robust solution than what their previous third-party provider offered. ViaWest designed a cloud-based solution on their public cloud, focused on security design and availability. The cost-effective solution allows FPA to scale quickly when needed in an emergency and allows their platform and offerings to work instantaneously. The company also leverages CloudFlare through ViaWest for additional security features and content delivery.

“Reliability for a company like Fire Planning Associates means the difference between having a plan in case of a major public emergency and operating in the dark when lives are on the line,” said Andrew Hodes, VP of product development, ViaWest. “We recognize the trust Fire Planning Associates has placed in our team and have addressed their pain points to map out a flexible and reliable environment to continue their critical mission. We treat them as our partner as we do with all of our clients and act as an active extension of their team.”

“Montgomery County is one of the most densely populated areas in the region,” said Krauss. “To try and deal with any kind of emergency at that scale by the seat of your pants will not result in a good outcome. When we were hired by the county to provide critical infrastructure planning around the transportation of hazardous materials, I felt confident in our task with ViaWest hosting our solution.”

About ViaWestViaWest is a leading Hybrid IT solutions provider offering cloud, colocation, compliance services and security solutions, and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Shaw Communications Inc. (NYSE: SJR). With more than 16 years of experience, 30 North American data centers and nine cloud nodes, ViaWest offers IT and infrastructure solutions that solve business challenges while balancing cost, scalability and security requirements. ViaWest delivers tailored solutions designed for maximum reliability and flexibility backed by our 100% uptime commitment.

For additional information on ViaWest, please visit www.viawest.com or call 1-877-448-9378. Follow ViaWest on at LinkedIn and Twitter.

About Fire Planning AssociatesFire Planning Associates Inc., with offices in Bucks County, PA, are the designers and developers of Blazemark® software which creates preplans assisting emergency response and facility management personnel with quickly developing an incident action plan, maximizing firefighter effectiveness and safety and aiding in fire investigation. Blazemark also plays a critical role in helping corporations deal with emergencies as the front end to their business continuity plans and is used by major corporations on a global basis.

Learn more at http://fireplanningassociates.com/.

fama PR for ViaWestAlex Howe, 617-986-5030viawest@famapr.com

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