Product category:
Building Energy Efficiency and Sustainability
News Release from: Comtec Enterprises | Subject: Tollon Limited
Edited by the Buildingtalk Editorial
Team on 02 May 2008
Comtec Case Study: Tollon Limited
Comtec relocate Tollon Limited who supply internet-related services to home and business
Tollon is a Microsoft Gold Partner accredited for web hosting; whether you run your business from a single website on shared hosting or via multiple sites on multiple dedicated servers our technical team is well-qualified to give you the support you need Tollon have invested in state of the art Data Centres in West London - all with 24/7 on-site security providing superior, versatile and resilient internet solutions at a competitive rate with market leader SuperMicro (provider of a wide range of cutting edge rack servers)
This article was originally published on Buildingtalk on 2 May 2008 at 8.00am (UK)
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The Challenges.
Tollon wanted to relocate and centralise their two data centres into one.
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Due to the rise of data centre pricing within the London arena, Tollon decided to take both of their London based data centres to Maidenhead.
Many hosting companies are now moving away from high priced London hosting houses and Tollon decided to relocate to BlueSquare, an up and coming co-location and data centre provider.
Matthew Munson Bluesquare ltd comments: "Tollon decided to use BlueSquare for two primary reasons, the fixing of ever spiralling co-location costs over a long period of time coupled with high power density, something that not many co-location datacentre's offer these days, and the customer driven focus of the company".
"BlueSquare prides itself on putting customers first which means much faster turnaround times and intelligent hands response times than our competitors".
"Because we are a dynamic company we tailor all our co-location offerings for each client, however all benefit from a guaranteed 5 minutes intelligent hands response times, something that is paramount when things go wrong with clients equipment".
"BlueSquare is big enough to provide solid foundations for Tollon long term, but small and flexible enough to provide exactly what Tollon wanted and when they wanted it".
Comtec were recommended to Tollon by Bluesquare as the two had partnered for previous data centre relocations".
"I am very pleased that Comtec were recommended to us by Bluesquare as their service and attitude towards our relocation was second to none".
Bill Bowyer - Managing Director - Tollon .
This relocation consisted of over 300 servers split between 30 racks.
All of these servers and networking equipment were mission critical as they were either owned by Tollon's customers or Tollon themselves and were providing a 24/7 hosting solution.
This means that the relocation of both data centres had to be very carefully planned to ensure Tollon's customers had a minimum downtime to ensure their business's continuity.
The Solution.
This relocation was spread over 3 nights of one weekend.
Numerous meetings were held prior to the relocation between Comtec's relocation project manager and Tollon's Network Management team to ensure that a full-proof plan was devised for each nights relocation, this eliminated any issues that could arise also prevented any additional questions being asked by Comtec's technical staff, this allowing Tollon the free time to re-test their network.
Part of this plan was for Comtec to draw up rack plans showing the equipment in their existing rack (what server was in what U space of each rack) and also a detailed diagram of how their racks will look once relocated.
Not only did this give our engineers a fully versed plan of the relocation but it also acted as a new audit for Tollon.
Another reason for these plans being devised was that Comtec needed to offer a minimum of 3 hours downtime per server per night.
This meant that Comtec engineers knew which server was to be relocated per night allowing Comtec to guarantee we hit the required service levels.
Comtec's appointed project manager oversaw each night's relocation and reported directly to Tollon's Network Management team, this meant there was one point of contact for each night giving Tollon peace of mind during the whole relocation.
The Results.
Comtec pride themselves as being one of the best in the field for data centre relocations.
To date Comtec have had zero failure on relocated data centre equipment and Tollon was no exception.
Tollon ran a shut down script each night for the servers being relocated.
Comtec de-cabled/ de-racked all equipment and packed these securely for transport using our specialist IT relocation equipment.
On some nights the most mission critical servers were sent ahead of the rest with Comtec engineers in order to satisfy Tollon's premium customers, the rest of the equipment followed.
Once at the new data centre all equipment was re-cabled/ re-racked according to its importance.
Because of Comtec's experience in data centre relocations we were able to flag up any issues before they happened each night, some of these issues can be very simple things such as changing profiles on rack rails to allow them to fit in new racks.
Comtec sent engineers ahead to rectify any of these problems that may have occurred.
Comtec's power team were also involved in this project giving Tollon advise and specifications for power and cooling requirements for their new data centre.
This advise was offered to Tollon through numerous meetings free of charge and as an added value to the relocation".
"I would like to take this opportunity to thank Comtec for their help and expertise during our relocation".
"Before we contacted Comtec we viewed this relocation as being a major headache due to Comtec's proficient planning and project management they made the job seem easy".
Simon Botting - Network Manager -Tollon . Request a free brochure from Comtec Enterprises ...
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