Virgin Media Launches Co-Location Service

Virgin Media Business has launched a co-location service with eleven regional data centres provided by data centre firm ICM, linked by the Virgin Media Business nationwide fibre-optic network.

This company  launched a tailored service for data centre connectivity in February, and now has its own co-location service, promising 99.95 percent availability and high-speed access to their data, with high security – Virgin Media Business’ recently received the NGN 2-2-4 security accreditation.

Co-Location Service

Virgin Media sees co-location as a way to build confidence in outsourcing certain elements of the critical IT infrastructure, allowing customers to either install their own hardware (i.e. servers) into a data centre, or alternatively use hardware from the service provider. Virgin Media feels that many UK organisations are constrained by their existing space and power availability, which is hampering their disaster recovery capabilities as well as their ability to road test a virtualised IT environment.

“The reason we started looking at offering co-location capabilities, is that our customers started asking us for a co-location option as they recognised that their hardware needs to located offsite,” said  Andrew Gibson, senior product manager for applications and services at Virgin Media Business.

The new service uses secure data centres in key locations such as Glasgow, Leeds and Farnborough, along with facilities in Birmingham, London (Wapping and Old Street), Manchester, Romford, Bristol, Sevenoaks (Kent) and Uxbridge.

Network Is Our USP

“We are looking to differentiate ourselves from others, and the main way we will do that is via our network,” said Gibson. “Our network is local to our customers, and the regional centres located throughout the UK are also local to them.”

“We spoke to a number of businesses that operate in  this space, and we opted to work with ICM, who already has a regional presence, so we used those eleven data centres in conjunction with our network, said Gibson.

But what about any worries about placing corporate hardware or certain services, outside their premise and effectively outside their control? The recent outage at Amazon for example highlighted the reliance that some businesses are now placing on service providers.

“More and more customers are starting to realise these outages can stop their business from working, and indeed many don’t recover fully from a lengthy outage,” agreed Gibson. “Their IT hardware can be located in their own premises or in our own co-location centres and this is an example of the journey customers are currently undertaking.”

Cloud Concerns

“Many businesses are today fearful of the cloud, and are concerned at the perceived loss of control,” said Gibson. “But that is where co-location comes in, as it acts as the first step to the cloud, as it allows business to recognise that it works, and therefore builds confidence. It allows them to locate their hardware in a secure data centre yet still retain control.”

Given these doubts, Gibson agrees taht many businesses will opt for a hybrid cloud approach: “I agree with the hybrid approach, and my personal view is that public cloud will be for very generic solutions, but there will always been a need for an element of private cloud.”

Virgin may actually offer a cloud service in future, it seems: the future we are looking at the cloud but I cannot say too much about that other than, ‘watch this space,’” he said.

Local Option

“For us the co-location service is exciting because of two points. The first is that it is a regional offering, as customers do not want spend a lot of ‘dead time’ in the car travelling to their hardware. The fact that we are local allows them to manage their hardware in a quick time,” said Gibson.

“The second point comes down to the £13 billion investment we have made in our network. Indeed, the key is our network connectivity, coupled with eleven data centres that range from Hampshire to Glasgow. All this help the customer journey as they seek a virtualised escape. We have listened to customers and delivered what they have asked for.”