Datum Datacentres motors on and looks to life beyond lockdown

Despite the UK lockdown and the air of general uncertainty that has been shrouding the country since mid-March, we are thankful that we can continue motoring on as before. Our clients are still able to access their IT platforms on-site, if required. However, due to social distancing measures, many are opting to capitalise on our remote engineering services for routine maintenance activities such as swapping out hardware or replacing broken equipment. In the datacentre world, where complete security and the prevention of service disruption are paramount, we always have a back-up plan in place in case of major issues, despite hoping that these emergency strategies will never actually have to be implemented. But coronavirus has been an eye-opener for us all and it has reminded us that things that are beyond our control can, and do, go wrong. 

Lockdown has also been a stark reminder that, in the context of IT infrastructure, hedging your bets is not necessarily the safest option. Many companies that have a distributed IT set-up across various buildings and locations are currently finding things particularly challenging as they struggle to access elements of their physical IT due to building closures. In contrast, those that have their IT real estate located in in our datacentre are experiencing little or no impact on the management of their IT infrastructure.

We have been receiving very positive feedback from our clients about the seamless continuation of our services and have noticed that many companies are thinking, right now, about consolidating their IT in one datacentre location and implementing a hybrid model to prepare themselves in case of a repeat of this current lockdown situation. 

The UN predicts that there will be more pandemics after COVID-19. This may sound like a bleak outlook, but even if it turns out not to be the case, experts are predicting that coronavirus is here to stay, so we must be prepared for further periods of social distancing even after this initial coronavirus crisis is over. This pandemic has proved to us that we are more than capable of keeping everything running and we will continue to adapt to requirements, however restrictive, to ensure that our business activities can continue unscathed. And we remain excited about the continued build-out of the first floor and, dependent on future growth and appetite for our colocation services, we will be turning our attention to our next big project; the conversion of our car park space in to a further 750 racks of space aimed at companies that want to custom build for larger requirements. Watch this space!