The £500,000 upgrade, delivering carrier grade speeds of up to 10 Gigabits-per-second (Gbps) connects ITPS’ three data centres in Gateshead, Newcastle and Sunderland, and will provide ITPS customers with a highly flexible and reliable platform giving access to their information without delay, wherever they are and whenever they need it.
ITPS works with private and public sector organisations, to deliver high speed, secure data centre facilities to 340 customers acting as an outsourced, collocated, virtual IT department, or supporting applications required by existing IT infrastructures. With customers based across the UK and Europe, using multiple data centres, connectivity and reliability are absolutely crucial to ensuring that ITPS’ customers have the ability to deploy solutions that deliver access to their data at all times.
One ITPS customer benefiting from the strength of the new network is Swissport UK. Swissport UK’s complete IT and IS function is housed in the ITPS data centre, with high speed access to these systems underpinned by the 186,000km of Virgin Media Business’ fibre optic network. Swissport UK is part of global company Swissport International, which provides airport ground services for over 70 million passengers and 3.2 million tons of cargo every year. With a workforce of around 30,000 around the world, Swissport depends on instant access to essential flight information to carry out seamless operations in UK airports. Handling up to 400 flights per day, and with delays costing up to £110 for every minute a flight is grounded, constant access to IT and IS systems is a critical factor in its operations.
In order to ensure that this is possible, all of Swissport UK’s IT and IS systems and operating data are stored in a primary location and then replicated to a secondary environment in the ITPS data centres, kept up to date in real-time. The new 10 Gigabits-per-second (Gbps) connection is central to the delivery of this solution. In the event of a communications system or infrastructure failure, Swissport UK’s systems will automatically transfer to the backup system, ensuring that Swissport UK retains access to its data at all times.
“Our customers trust us to manage and house their IT and IS systems and data as effectively as if it were within their own four walls. By ramping up our network, they will have faster, more resilient access to what they need, in real-time,” said Gary Sherriff, managing director at ITPS. “As businesses have to process, store and access more data than ever before, we’re under increasing pressure to support this growth. A resilient backhaul network is absolutely critical for the delivery of cloud based services and High Availability Solutions, crucial to the realisation of ours and our customers’ success.”
After a decade of working with Virgin Media Business, ITPS decided to upgrade its network which connects its three data centres across the UK, and its workspace recovery centre. The high capacity infrastructure gives ITPS a measurable differentiator against its competition. ITPS expects to treble its data centre business and it’s spending with Virgin Media Business in the next five years. The network upgrade has been central to five new client wins for ITPS, all of whom are harnessing the value of the higher speeds that the upgraded systems can deliver.
“Instant, reliable access to information is the driving force behind businesses today. Outsourcing data management shouldn’t mean feeling a loss of control. With the right technologies in place, IT managers across the country can sleep easy knowing that their network can handle the explosion of data,” said Alan Worthing, head of business markets for Virgin Media Business in the North East. “We’ve been working hand in hand with ITPS for more than a decade now and it’s great to help them continue to evolve with technology solutions that support the challenges facing their customers.”