Colt supports Netgroup with colocation and connectivity
Cast-iron protection for critical business applications and intellectual property
Colt supports Netgroup with colocation and connectivity for a customer’s customer
Many large enterprises in Denmark – especially those that operate in regulated industries such as life sciences, pharmaceuticals and financial services – choose to work with one of the country’s leading IT outsourcing providers. To help its customers comply with data security, disaster recovery and other policy and regulatory requirements, the provider ensures security and resilience are built in to the infrastructure, hosting and connectivity solutions it designs and delivers. In most cases, this means implementing secondary – or backup – infrastructure that can take over from the primary infrastructure if required, and allow business to continue without interruption. The outsourcing provider often chooses to house customers’ secondary infrastructure in data centres owned and run by Netgroup, a local managed hosting provider.
Safeguarding valuable IP
One customer had disaster recovery needs that went further than most. It wanted to ensure the security of – and uninterrupted access to – its critical data and applications in the event of either:
• A failure at both the primary and secondary hosting locations
• A security breach requiring shutdown of both the primary and secondary infrastructures
“The customer’s data includes a great deal of valuable intellectual property,” says Steen Andersen, Key Account Manager at Netgroup. “They wanted to be sure that, no matter what happened, their data wouldn’t be at risk and they wouldn’t lose access to it.” To meet those needs, the outsourcing provider gave the customer the option to implement, at any time, an additional backup solution at a facility separate from its own data centre infrastructure – including Netgroup locations. Under the terms of the contract, the solution had to be up and running within three months of the customer’s request.
Delivering a project like this in six weeks was extremely fast – the fastest Netgroup has ever achieved.Steen Andersen, Key Account Manager, Netgroup
It was only possible because of the willingness and effectiveness of the teams from both Colt businesses
Collaborative working delivers results
When the customer decided to take up the option, the outsourcing provider invited Netgroup and other providers to propose solutions based onthird-party infrastructure. Netgroup has a partnership with Colt Data Centre Services (DCS) and co-operates closely with Colt Technology Services on connectivity projects. “Both relationships helped to speed up the technical solution design and sales processes, which was critical given the tight project deadline,” says Andersen.
Accelerated solutions: from design to delivery in just 6 weeks
Working closely together, the three companies proposed a solution comprising:
- Colocation in a private cage at the Colt DCS data centre in Copenhagen
- Three Colt-provided dark fibre routes, each more than 20km long, providing diverse connections between the Colt DCS data centre and the provider’s own data centres where the customer’s primary infrastructure is hosted
“Our design reflected the outsourcing provider’s requirements for a solution they could manage themselves, based on flexible colocation space and dark fibre connections with the capacity to support additional future requirements. The value of the total solution over individual line items convinced them to select our proposalSteen Andersen, Key Account Manager, Netgroup
On-time delivery satisfies customer needs
The competitive bidding process having accounted for around half of the three-month timeframe, Netgroup and the Colt businesses had just six weeks to implement the solution infrastructure. “Delivering a project like this in six weeks was extremely fast — the fastest Netgroup has ever achieved,” says Andersen. “It was only possible because of the willingness and effectiveness of the teams from both Colt businesses.” Andersen reports that, following testing, the outsourcing provider expressed complete satisfaction with the solution. And because it was delivered before the three-month deadline expired, they avoided contractual penalties. Andersen points out that it takes more than formalised contracts and processes to successfully deliver projects like this one, saying: “Open, direct and pragmatic lines of communication between Netgroup and the Colt businesses enable us to bring the right people together to get things done.”
COMPANY NAME
Netgroup
INDUSTRY
Managed Hosting Provider / Technology
CHALLENGE
To enable an IT outsourcing provider to meet a customer’s urgent need for a secure, reliable backup solution separate from the provider’s own infrastructure.
COLT SOLUTION
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