“As our original Cambridge hosting suite was full we have built another which more than doubles capacity,” explained Tariq Saied, Redstone Managed Solutions managing director.
The University is renting six racks within Redstone’s purpose-built facility. Customers rent rack space by the quarter, half and full rack, enabling them to site servers and other devices within a secure location.
Dr Jake Hornsby, Head of the Network Division for the Cambridge University Computing Service, said: “We needed an alternate site to ensure resiliency of critical services and we are currently not in a position to build a second data centre. This approach removes the need for a second site in the interim, and, as an added benefit, reduces our costs of administration.
“Redstone’s reputation and capabilities and the ease of access they offered allow us to continue to provide reliable, world-class services in the event of a disaster recovery situation.”
As part of the service provision, Redstone has become the first commercial organisation to be allowed to connect to the university’s high speed fibre network.
The suite is equipped with high-speed, resilient internet access, point-to-point Ethernet circuits enabling customers to connect either back to their home office or to another co-location facility, and online data backup for customers requiring a secure solution without manual intervention. The suite is protected by an uninterruptible power supply, back-up generator and 24 hour CCTV security.