Redstor provides storage and backup services to business as cloud services from its data centres. The company wanted more control over its cloud delivery and a more responsive and powerful platform from which to provide its services.
Exponential-e migrated Redstor’s services from its existing data centres into purpose-built facilities at the heart of Exponential-e’s smart wired network. Exponential-e’s significant data centre presence and large network footprint made this cost-effective. Server farms at each location mirror data for business continuity purposes across Exponential-e’s low latency, low jitter environment at sub-millisecond speeds.
Adrian Hobbins, Chief Technology Officer at Exponential-e explains: “One of the things that our Smart Wires give us is a transparent layer 2 network between the data centres. Transparency means that server workload can be balanced across the two sites in real time and lets us give our customer an end to end SLA.” He went on to say: “Redstor uses VMware to virtualise its storage devices and the low-latency, low jitter nature of our Smart Wires means it can now drag and drop virtual machines between sites to where they are most needed”.
As part of the solution, Exponential-e built Redstor a new IP network environment in order to migrate its customer base to the new platform. Exponential-e registered Redstor with RIPE so that it could own its own IP addresses and AS numbers, enabling full control of the delivery of its online services. Dominic Anschutz, Operations Manager at Redstor said “As a cloud provider, it’s important that customers can connect to our services reliably and whenever they want. Thanks to Exponential-e we are no longer beholden on any network supplier to enable access to our services. We are self-sufficient and we are now also ready to take advantage of IPv6”.
Moving forward, Redstor will have the option of delivering and bundling services differently. The storage provider’s portfolio could be made available over dedicated connectivity, along with additional services as part of a converged bundle, for those customers who want an alternative to the public cloud.