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BUSINESS
Logicalis provides integrated ICT services to customers from operations in the UK, US, Germany, Latin America and the Asia Pacific region. The company has 1,900 employees and 5,000 customers worldwide.
CHALLENGE
When Logicalis launched a range of cloud services in the UK, it needed to maximise its investment in a new £7.3 million data centre by achieving rapid business take-on, consistent service levels and exceptional agility.
SOLUTION
CA Technologies enables Logicalis to automate the provisioning and migration of customer workloads within cloud environments. The company can also quickly resolve problems, track service levels and monitor power usage.
BENEFIT
Logicalis can offer its customers cost-effective, low-risk and agile
cloud-based services. This will help Logicalis enhance competitive advantage, improve profitability and deliver shareholder value.
CUSTOMER PROFILE Industry: IT services Organisation: Logicalis Employees: 1,900 Revenue: $1 billion
cost-effective cloud
“Our aim is to offer cloud
services that involve minimal risk.”
Business
Helping customers take advantage of the latest technologies
Logicalis is a $1 billion turnover global provider of IT & Communications Technology (ICT) solutions and services focusing on communications and collaboration; datacentre; professional and managed services.
Logicalis provides integrated ICT solutions and services to more than 5,000 corporate and public sector customers. The company helps organisations reduce costs by designing, specifying, deploying and managing end user, network and datacentre environments using the latest technologies.
Headquartered in the UK, Logicalis has 1,900 employees and operations in the US, UK, Germany, Latin America and the Asia Pacifi c region. The company’s current business goal is to become a leading international provider of Unifi ed Communications and Collaboration and Data Centre solutions, and increase annuity and services revenues in order to make the business more predictable for
shareholders, and drive ongoing investment.
Challenge
Developing and delivering cloud-based IT services
Cloud computing is revolutionising how organisations consume and deliver IT. Gartner predicts that by 2012, 80 percent of Fortune 1000 enterprises will be paying for some cloud computing services, and 30 percent will be paying for cloud computing infrastructure services.
For ICT service companies such as Logicalis, cloud computing creates numerous new challenges and opportunities. The concept of organisations no longer owning and managing their own IT infrastructures is changing the ICT supply chain; however this has presented an opportunity for Logicalis, and the company has chosen to embrace the cloud computing model in order to offer new and more fl exible services to current and prospective customers.
The company’s Cooperative Enterprise Cloud Service encompasses not only ‘private clouds’ hosted at its data centre but also dedicated on-site private clouds, infrastructure-as-a-service and application-as-a-service.
Chris Gabriel, Marketing Director at Logicalis UK, comments, “Cloud computing does not mean that organisations are going to immediately stop delivering IT services internally or via an outsourcing partner. Our services are designed to support a multi-tiered approach – whether it involves private cloud environments based on dedicated or shared facilities or traditional infrastructure hosting.” Cloud computing is still an immature model with limited industry standards governing service delivery, which can lead to additional risk both for providers and customers.
“Our aim is to offer customers cloud services that are aligned to their business needs, easy to understand and involve minimal risk,” comments Gabriel. “This means using best-of-breed technologies and specifying service level agreements that can actually be met.”
Solution
A dynamic, virtual and automated environment
Logicalis’ data centre is founded on Cisco’s Unifi ed Computing System (UCS), NetApp storage and CA Technologies management tools.
“We were already using CA Technologies solutions to support our network managed service and found them easy to use, reliable and cost-effective,” comments Gabriel. “To avoid investing in new technologies and skills, it made sense to retain this tried and trusted toolset for the delivery of our cloud services thereby mitigating some of the risks of launching the new offering.”
7
minutes to relocate customer
workloads between virtual
To help manage its cloud platform, Logicalis uses: CA Automation Suite for Data Centers
•
CA Spectrum® Infrastructure Manager (IM) •
CA eHealth® Performance Manager (PM) •
CA Ecometer •
By leveraging the stateless computing capabilities of Cisco UCS in tandem with CA Automation Suite for Data Centers, Logicalis is able to quickly provision customer cloud environments and transition workloads between virtual servers based on demand and capacity.
The solution defi nes the infrastructure – for example computing resources and networking bandwidth – needed to support each workload, which are then automatically provisioned and confi gured within a ‘virtual container’ in the cloud environment.
“By using CA Automation Suite for Data Centers and creating an infrastructure that is inherently dynamic, virtual and automated, we can move even large corporate applications such as Oracle and SAP between ‘containers’ in just seven minutes,” comments Gabriel.
Safeguarding service quality
While CA Automation Suite for Data Centers enables rapid deployment and migration of workloads across the cloud infrastructure, CA Spectrum IM and CA eHealth PM help Logicalis maintain consistent service levels for customers by providing:
24x7 infrastructure monitoring •
Automated alerts to potential performance problems •
Automated, model-based root cause analysis •
Historical and real-time reporting •
Logicalis also uses CA Technologies solutions to safeguard the effi ciency of the data centre facility, which is key to ensuring its cloud offerings remain competitive.
Using CA Ecometer, Logicalis collects and collates data from 80 points throughout the facility to generate accurate statistics around energy usage. This not only helps Logicalis provide its customers with accurate energy bills, but also aids management of its own carbon footprint.
“CA Technologies has a defined
strategy for developing and
supporting cloud environments.”
Chris Gabriel
Marketing Director, Logicalis UK
Benefi t
Enhancing competitive advantage
Using CA Technologies solutions Logicalis has been able to develop cost-effective, low-risk and agile cloud-based services. The services have garnered considerable interest, with the Customer Briefi ng Centre in daily use, to illustrate the benefi ts of cloud computing to potential customers.
“CA Technologies has a defi ned strategy for developing and supporting cloud environments, which will support our new business stream and enable our customers to take maximum advantage of this economical approach to IT delivery,” comments Gabriel.
The ability to offer cloud computing services will enable Logicalis to:
Develop its services business in line with company goals, thereby achieving a more •
predictable income and greater margins Retain and grow its customer base •
Increase competitive advantage and profi tability •
“The next few years will be an exciting time for Logicalis and its customers as we move further into cloud computing. Having a partner like CA Technologies will help to smooth this transition and minimise risk,” concludes Gabriel.
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