B2net implement Scotmid first phase data centre
Following Chesterfield-based B2net’s acquisition of Scottish-based Productivity Computer Solutions (PCS) last year, the company has recently opened an office at the Scottish Enterprise Technology Park, East Kilbride, Glasgow, which is perfectly placed to meet the continuing storage and IT infrastructure requirements of Scottish businesses and has completed the first phase of a programme of server virtualisation, data centre centralisation and back-up and recovery at the Edinburgh Head Office of Scottish Midland Cooperative Society (SCOTMID).
The Co-operative employs over 4,200 staff and has 260 food stores and toiletry retail outlets, a thriving commercial and residential property portfolio, and one of the largest Funeral Services in Scotland. The Society also operates a beauty and toiletry wholesale business in Wakefield. For the year ended 26 January 2008
operating surplus before exceptionals has nearly doubled to £6.7m compared to £3.5m for the same period last year. Pre-tax profit is £3m compared to £0.1m and post-tax profit is £1m compared to a loss of £1.6m for 2007. Turnover at Scotmid has risen from £371m to £378m with the Society’s strong asset base increasing from £92m to £96m.
Scott Kerr, Head of IT at SCOTMID comments, “After a thorough selection process we decided that B2net was the only choice for us as they have the best technical capabilities on the market. We needed extra storage to support a huge new database as our existing data centre had reached maximum capacity. Also as our head office is based close to Edinburgh Airport we also wanted to ensure that our disaster recovery strategy was as robust as possible”.
B2net started designing the programme in January 2007, introducing VMware to provide a high level of resilience, reducing the number of physical servers at the head office from 25 to 5. B2net centralised all data with an IBM N-series filer, with optimum clustering and super resilience. This will eventually replicate with the data centre at Livingston.
“The B2net team have been with us every step of the way, providing all the help and support we need to achieve a quick and effective installation,” adds Kerr. “We now have the ability to implement a robust disaster recovery system and the capability to provide multiple backups and distributed storage that will support our future growth. We now also have the ability to host the large volumes of data a retailer needs in their MIS systems to drive sales and improve customer service. "
Mark Butcher, B2net’s Divisional Sales Manager comments: “Phase 1 of the implementation was completed on time and we are currently supporting Scotmid during the data migration process. We are looking forward to working with Scotmid to provide a disaster recovery programme for a second site, in December 2008.”
B2net implemented and installed 5 x IBM X3850 servers with VMware; IBM n5300 clustered filer with 21TB storage (raw); SnapMirror, SnapRestore, SnapManager for SQL, iSCSI, Snapdrive for Windows; an IBM TS3310 Tape Library (including six LTO 3 drives); and Tivoli Storage Manager.
B2net is providing Scotmid with full 24x7 IT Service Support with its Umbrella Support Service – a complete support solution that guarantees end-to-end service support and a single point of ownership for customers’ infrastructure problems.
Source: http://www.scotmid.com/
http://www.b2net.co.uk.