The client
A leading international infrastructure group with a business that covers the finance, development, build and maintenance of innovative and efficient essential infrastructure.
The challenge
Within its strategic priorities, the company has the stated objective of improving operational performance and to deliver value to customers. In order to best support their business objectives, a number of key IT services were reviewed, including the IT server estate where the bulk was installed within an existing colocation provider.
What happened?
The company instigated a major IT transformation project of which one element was to consolidate the existing disparate server estate.
They sought a flexible solution that would avoid wasted expenditure and long term lock-ins for capacity and power and had defined a requirement for a secure data centre facility to provide a platform for the ongoing consolidation.
Starting with a lift and shift from the existing co-lo provider, additional individual workloads would be moved into the co-lo facility over a period of time incorporating new services as they became part of the infrastructure and technical landscape (for example, Microsoft Azure connectivity, on premise virtualisation infrastructure).
Datum colocation
When it came to selecting the new colocation provider, some members of the team had already experienced Datum at first hand and, having had a positive experience, were keen to include Datum in the selection process.
Datum’s proposed solution was based upon power presentation rather than footprint. This allows for a flexible model giving easy access to additional power whilst reducing the amount of space taken, without penalty and fallow charges.
In addition, secure and direct access to multiple connectivity, cloud and managed service providers within the same facility supports the need for new services as and when required.
The client took an initial 16 racks in early 2016 which has since grown by a further 12 racks.
Datum supports the client’s ongoing commercial and operational flexibility by enabling:
- The ability to flex both up and down over the lifetime of the contract in terms of power
- A similar ability to flex up and down over the lifetime in terms of space and footprint
- Short-term access to additional space and power when required (for example for the client’s Virtualisation project)
- Access to multiple cloud platforms and carriers
Of particular note
Datum ticked all the boxes when it came to the RFP, meeting and exceeding required levels of resilience, security, power, flexibility and contiguous space but the added bonus for the client lay in Datum’s concierge approach. This was particularly apparent over the weekend of the physical transition when the assistance of the Datum team was invaluable in ensuring a successful set up.
In the client’s own words:
The weekend wasn't without some hairy moments but we have our infrastructure in place. The Datum staff were excellent as expected. I'd like to add that the engineer was brilliant, nothing was too much bother and he was really like a part of our team, could you pass on our gratitude please? Thanks to everyone at Datum for assisting in the transition, great service.
More case studies
Case study
Service Providers
Business continuity
Case study
Service Providers
Cloud and professional services provider
Case study
Enterprise
Financial services
Case study
Partner / Service Providers
Global IT service provider
Case study
Service Providers
Hosting and managed service provider
Case study
Service Providers
Hybrid IT service provider
Case study
Enterprise / Service Providers
Legal services - IT migration and digital transformation
