Mike Collins is seen with his award at the Chattanooga Convention Center on Wednesday.

Mike Collins & Associates, Inc., has completed a $2.6 million expansion of its data center and depot storage facility to expand its growing cloud-hosting operations.

Collins, founder and president of MCA, said the 7,500-square-foot warehouse addition -- one- third of which is built on raised floor space -- was modeled after several tier 3 data centers and has separated power systems equipped with 2N redundancy and features the latest in-row, chilled water air conditioning. Collins said the APC Eco-Aisle offers a functional design "that allows us to grow our data center on demand.

"This is the largest and, I believe, most important single development in our 27-year history," Collins said in a statement. "It is this kind of investment and innovation that has both made, and will keep MCA the premier IT solutions provider in the area."

MCA, which Collins started in 1987 with two employees selling IT equipment, has grown to more than 60 employees in three cities and operates cloud-based IT services and support for a variety of companies.

"The addition of our data center is a game changer for MCA," said James Bender, the company's director of technical services. "Many data center providers are attempting to bridge the gap by adding technical support and on-site services. We built our data center on top of a successful technical support foundation. The function and capabilities are limitless and our location in Gig-City is crucial to our customer's needs for security and accessibility."