At Datanet we have a variety of customers who use our colocation services in many different ways to facilitate their IT needs. Let’s take a look at some who are colocating with us and highlight the many positive advantages CoLocation has to offer.
1. Provide Managed IT Services View video
The most common use of CoLocation is where managed IT service providers host their IT hardware in our data centre so they can provide their customers or staff with a resilient and highly secure suite of IT services. One fantastic example of this type of CoLocation is our client, ThinkOn.
ThinkOn, a Canadian company providing managed IT services to their UK clients need infrastructure that scales without limits while maintaining flexibility and familiarity. Providing solutions such as, Veeam Cloud Connect, Office 365 back ups, multi-tenant hosting using VMWare and private hosting. CoLocation provides the environment for these services together with the ability to accommodate edge equipment for clients allows ThinkOn to offer a range of bespoke solutions.
In the video you meet Douglas Henderson, Director of European Operations as he oversees the installation of an Hitachi G350 arrays into our data centre, providing the storage backbone for ThinkOn’s cloud environment here in the UK.
“Datanet is a great data centre provider, the biggest benefits of working with Datanet is the on site support and flexibilty of their services and the ability to quickly scale into other racks close to our environment which keeps everything seamless and easy to manage” – Douglas Henderson, Director of European Operations – ThinkOn
2. Provide Hosting for legacy hardware Case Study
There are many instances of hardware and applications that just don’t transition well or lend themselves to Public Cloud services. Graphics rendering, high performance computing (HPC) and HyperConverged Infrastructure (HCI) computing are just a few of the many examples. In this scenario, the customer or end user needs unusually high compute or storage or power requirements or the application just simply needs to live on dedicated hardware that just isn’t suitable for Public Cloud.
3. Provider of Managed IT Services from the Cloud CASE STUDY
Another great example is managed Cloud services providers. Colocating to supply their customers with a resilient and secure suite of cloud services, this is private or hybrid cloud that you could take from one of the big public cloud providers but don’t want to be dependant or tied into their inflexible and often very expensive models. You might even have some legacy applications that just don’t work in public cloud and you need “the edge connect” flexibility provided by Datanet where you can mix cloud and legacy hardware and applications.
4. Part of your Business Continuity Plan CASE STUDY
One of our clients, operating from central London, is colocating as part of their business continuity plan which requires them to house their critical DR servers in a highly secure offsite location outside of London. The offsite hardware needs to be close enough for them to get to quickly if needs be and Datanet’s Ark data centre is ideally situated on the M3 corridor. Backing up all their data to Datanet’s Dell EqualLogic storage arrays, so, in the event of a loss of infrastructure in London, they can restore all their valuable data onto the hardware colocated in racks in our data centre.
5. Proof of Concept (PoC) Laboratory. Case Study
Another of our clients take a significant number of our large racks to provide their Proof of Concept (PoC) laboratory services. Configuring high end routers and switches (Cisco and Juniper) for large carrier deployment before releasing it in to live environment both here in the UK and overseas. CoLocation within our Data Centre allows them to simulate a global live environment on which they can fully test these applications, software and hardware ensuring that they are delivering a finished product that will work as expected when rolled out into the real world.
Which colocation package is for you?
Colocating at Datanet facilities
So, as you can see, just from looking at a few examples of our colocation customers we have highlighted the variety of uses which can benefit businesses, giving flexible options which might not be available via the big Public Cloud providers.
Whether it’s used for hosting business critical applications, online trading, as part of your Business Continuity Plan, to offer managed I.T. services from the Cloud for your own customers or to set up a proof of concept lab to perform testing, colocation is a fundamental building block for these and many more business propositions.
Colocation is good for the environment too
Our ARK data centre provides energy-efficient, innovative direct air evaporative cooling, dramatically helping to lower energy consumption and costs, capable of providing compressor free cooling for 100% of the year. Sustainability and renewable energy together with high availability, resilience, connectivity and built to Banking and Government “official” security standards. We can accommodate your engineers with workspace, meeting rooms and the all important kitchen for making a brew!
Our on-site expert engineers are available when you need that extra peace of mind. For those days when you just can’t get to us, we offer a remote hands service to get the job done for you.
Contact one of our team to find out about our special WINTER OFFER, short term fixed 6-month contract to see you through to Spring/Summer 2023 on 01252 810010 to find out how your business could benefit from a CoLocation solution.
