TORONTO, Jan. 24 – Q9 Networks is pleased to announce that it has been selected by Agnico-Eagle Mines Limited to provide high availability co-location services that will be at the core of a new hybrid cloud solution being developed for Agnico-Eagle's most critical IT systems, including its ERP, financial and web-based applications.

Agnico-Eagle is a long established, Canadian headquartered, gold producer with approximately 5,000 employees. It has operations in Canada, Finland and Mexico, and exploration and development activities in Canada, Finland, Mexico and the United States.

Agnico-Eagle is consolidating its IT services and infrastructure from two internal facilities to a Q9 data centre located in Toronto, Ontario. Q9 is providing Agnico-Eagle with secure physical space, highly reliable power, bandwidth and 7x24 monitoring to ensure the highest levels of performance and reliability for all of its business systems.

By co-locating at Q9, Agnico-Eagle eliminates the complexity of managing multiple facilities, reduces costs and provides secure access to critical IT assets for employees around the globe and in very remote locations.

"We are providing an enhanced level of cloud-based IT services, both private and public, to our users and require data centre infrastructure that can consistently meet our reliability targets," says Lino Cafazzo , Vice President, Information Technology, Agnico-Eagle Mines Limited. "After visiting numerous data centre providers, we chose Q9 because of its power and network uptime guarantees, its high level of security and its ability to meet our audit requirements."

Q9 designs, builds and operates its data centres to meet the most demanding IT infrastructure requirements, including the increased power and cooling demands of today's high density computing devices. Customers connect to the Internet via Q9's unique network and are protected by Q9's 100 percent, SLA-backed uptime guarantees on both power and network availability. Customer equipment and data centre environmental parameters are monitored 7x24 by Q9's Control Centre, staffed by experts versed in all aspects of IT and facilities management.

"We are delighted to be adding Agnico-Eagle to our growing roster of mining company customers," says Q9 Chief Executive Officer, Osama Arafat . "Leading companies like Agnico-Eagle recognize the value in outsourcing their data centre requirements so they can focus on business applications that improve productivity and efficiency. We are pleased to provide Agnico-Eagle with the robust and secure infrastructure it needs to ensure a superior online experience for its employees and customers."

About Agnico-Eagle

Agnico-Eagle is a long established, Canadian headquartered, gold producer with operations located in Canada, Finland and Mexico, and exploration and development activities in Canada, Finland, Mexico and the United States. The Company has full exposure to higher gold prices consistent with its policy of no forward gold sales and maintains a corporate strategy based on increasing shareholders exposure to gold, on a per share basis. It has declared a cash dividend for 30 consecutive years.

About Q9 Networks

Q9 Networks Inc. is Canada's leading provider of outsourced data centre infrastructure for organizations with mission-critical IT operations. Q9's data centres and network are backed by an industry leading SLA that guarantees 100 per cent network and power availability. Q9 services, including: co-location, bandwidth, dedicated servers, firewalls, load balancing, virtual private networking (VPN) and back-up/restore, enable the rapid provisioning and scalability of client infrastructure. Q9 Networks is owned by an investor group comprising Canada's largest communication company, BCE Inc., and some of the largest and most experienced North American pension and private equity funds, including: Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, Providence Equity Partners and Madison Dearborn Partners LLC.

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Source: Q9 Networks