The UK’s largest campaigning group for the self-employed and owners of small firms approached Calyx and its strategic web hosting partner PEER 1 Hosting to provide a more secure and robust environment for its colocation services. PEER 1 Hosting’s colocation facility at its new state-of-the-art 5,372m2 datacentre in Portsmouth provides access to IT services, office applications and its Intranet and website, which supports around 200,000 FSB members.
Ian Martin, head of systems and data at the Federation of Small Businesses said: “As an organisation we regularly review our contracts. As part of this process we began to feel our previous IT hosting provider wasn’t meeting our requirements when it came to aspects around security and the robustness of our colocation environment. As a result, we turned to Calyx for a stronger solution.”
He continues: “PEER 1 Hosting has one of the most cost-effective offerings to meet our overall requirements, whilst having the functionality with its facilities to take us into other service areas if we wished to – such as the cloud. We are impressed by the robustness of the data centre and the colocation environment and that its services are connected by its 10Gbps network.”
“From a cultural perspective, the data centre’s green credentials were important, as we wanted an eco-friendly service. PEER 1 Hosting’s contribution to the local economy as a growing business also fitted with our ethos as an organisation.” he said.
The move of servers took place in May 2012, with equipment being switched off at 7pm on a Friday evening before the move to PEER 1 Hosting’s data centre in Portsmouth. By mid-afternoon the next day, key services were up and running due to the dedication of both Calyx and PEER 1 Hosting’s data centre staff. Everything was back online by Monday with no disruption to members’ services as people got back to work.
Ian comments: “During the move the PEER 1 Hosting team went out of its way to ensure we and Calyx had everything we needed, as well as being on site, which was above and beyond what you would expect with a colocation agreement.”
Amanda Dunn, director of business development EMEA at PEER 1 Hosting said: “Colocation is the solution for many companies across the UK who want to keep control but want a secure environment for their server racks. Our data centre is centrally located, has a PUE of 1.1 and is connected by our 10Gbps FastFiber™ Network. By working with our strategic partner Calyx, PEER 1 Hosting is able to make the transition to a new facility straightforward for customers, so users don’t see a loss of service and can be up and running as quickly as possible.”