Why Secura Hosting Chose Infinity SDC To Be Its Data Centre Provider
Ollie Beaton, CEO at Secura, on how the firm came to the decision they did when shopping for the best data centre provider to suit its needs
The customer of the future
Secura, founded in 2001, provides highly scalable cloud infrastructure solutions to 100 clients from across the UK including leading B2B software as a service businesses, Causeway and Selima, international Microsoft Dynamics developer, AlfaPeople and the PPHE Hotel Group. Its staff works closely with customers to understand their challenges and help them achieve their goals.
Early in 2014, Secura identified an opportunity to grow the business by building a new Virtual Private Cloud infrastructure on latest generation technology, with the security and scalability to meet growing client demand. Secura’s outsourced technology consisted of racks located across various data centre facilities. This system suited the company’s needs at the time, however, as technology progressed and businesses focused on cloud services, Secura needed to review its infrastructure and find a flexible, scalable, efficient data centre that not only met their expectations, but also those of its clients.
Secura found that as cloud services became more critical to businesses, customers were asking to see where their data was being stored, meaning cloud providers needed to factor this requirement in when finding a data centre partner. As a business that builds its client relationships based on integrity and transparency, Secura needed to find a partner that would offer an equal level of integrity and transparency to its clients.
Ollie Beaton, CEO of Secura, explains, “When growing our company we have to consider the business elements, such as reducing costs, increasing the number of new business wins and catering to client demand. But we also need to consider that new customers with business critical applications in the cloud will want to visit our data centre facilities to see where their data is physically being stored.
“It’s important that we not only consider our data centres from a technical point of view, but also aesthetically. As cloud technology is playing an increasingly more central role in enterprise IT, we need to expect more visits in the future. A customer visit to a data centre can now really make or break a business deal.”
Finding the right provider
Extensive research was undertaken to identify a partner that could not only offer exceptional, highly secure infrastructure and the ability to upscale quickly, but one that could also impress clients with high-quality, remarkable data centres.
Secura selected award-winning data centre provider Infinity with a focus on its data centre facilities in Slough, offering growth and flexibility and maximising the value Secura provides its clients.
Ollie says, “We evaluated several providers and found Infinity exceeded our needs. The facilities at Infinity Slough are technically exceptional, providing the ability to flex with our requirements and scale the service when we need it. It not only offers fantastic service, but also has an appearance that truly impresses our customers.”
With Secura in a rapid growth phase, Infinity’s Infinite Data Centre product provides the flexibility to grow and shrink the data centre footprint in tune with the changes in the IT estate.
Infinity Slough
Infinity’s Slough data centre supports a broad range of flexible products and provides a range of pre-built facilities ready for immediate occupation. It offers individual racks, private suites, scalable halls and dedicated data centres supported by innovative cooling techniques. Its halls provide a standard power density of 8.5 – 10kW per rack and the modular, dynamic chilled water cooling system delivers a market leading PUE of 1.22. It is highly resilient with no single points of failure.
Stuart Sutton, CEO of Infinity says, “We see the data centre as a fully integrated part of the overall IT solution and our Infinite Data Centre proposition provides evidence of our commitment to this. Our flexible data centre solutions enable our partners to truly add value to their customers.”
Infinity Slough provides 9,200 m2 of technical space and is supported by 34MVA delivered via a dedicated on-site primary sub-station. Its state of the art design draws on all our previous experience. Everything about this data centre is truly world-class.
Taking the data centre beyond data
The facility plays a pivotal role in business growth for Secura, who predict growing at a rate of a minimum of one rack every six months and the organisation is utilising the visual effect Infinity Slough has on its customers.
Ollie explains, “For our customers the quality of Infinity Slough is a big attraction. Although scalability is a key selling point in our negotiations, when our customers visit the site they all talk about how impressive the data centre is. Infinity works hand in hand with our team to ensure our customers are looked after on the tour and see every aspect of the data centre.
“Our customers comment on the scale of the site, the high level of security and how modern the facility is. Infinity Slough has helped us secure deals and we now include site visits as an integral part of our new business process. Customers can see the investment in the facility and it is a reflection of Secura as a business.
“Our growth is obviously dependent on how many new customers we win and Infinity Slough has certainly helped us make this easier. As customers become more aware of the cloud and ask to see where their data is stored, it is great to be able to show them a data centre facility that is designed to meet the future, rather than the past.”
