August 24, 2011 – (HOSTSEARCH.COM) –
HBS Internet services 150 clients across the UK and Europe, ranging in size from multi-nationals and large organisations right down to the smallest of businesses, providing them with broadband, hosting, SEO services, web maintenance, web design, backup services as well as mail and file transfer management. It also helps clients with their IT and web infrastructure giving valuable commercial advice and support.
HBS Internet was an early client in
iomart Hosting’s Leicester Data Centre, which opened in 2009.
Steve Jones, Director at HBS Internet, says: “We bought into the Leicester Data Centre early on because we’re a company that looks ahead. We knew that virtualisation, the cloud and off-site back-up were important going forward for our customers, so going into iomart Hosting’s newly operational Leicester facility was all about anticipating future growth.”
The level of service guaranteed by iomart Hosting was hugely important for HBS Internet as it had been using a third party data centre in London but had been unhappy with its service levels for some time.
Debbie Riley Customer Services Director at HBS says: “We interviewed a number of data centre providers and chose iomart Hosting because it offered the highest service levels and the opportunity for commercially sustainable growth.”
“Internet usage and client demands tend to double every hundred days,” Steve explains, “so it’s really important that we have the capacity for growth. As a result in recent months we’ve actually had to double our footprint in Leicester. And expect to do so again very shortly”
As a business, HBS Internet is keen to improve operational efficiency and reduce its impact upon the environment wherever possible and therefore wanted to virtualise.
In consultation with HBS, iomart Hosting architected a hosting solution that reduced HBS’s 30 servers to 10 HP Proliant G7 DL380 high capacity servers using VMware’s ESX technology, which share clustered hardware to create a robust and efficient infrastructure. HBS Internet replicates all its non-essential client data to the cloud and uses military grade SSL encryption for back-up.
Steve Jones explains: “Virtualisation means we can use a Mac server, a Linux server and a Windows server all on the same platform. It’s great for resiliency, performance and the recovery rate is excellent.”
HBS Internet prides itself on the personal touch it provides for its clients no matter their size which is something that’s just as important to iomart Hosting.
“Our clients stay with us because they value the personal attention that they get from us,” Debbie Riley says. “That’s one of the reasons that we stay with iomart Hosting because we get the same personalised service from them that we pride ourselves on giving our own customers.”
iomart Hosting is a subsidiary of iomart Group plc which is ranked as one of the top 25 cloud services providers in the world by Talkin’ Cloud 50 and was named Scottish Digital IT company of the Year 2011.
About iomart Hosting
iomart Hosting is one of the UK’s leading providers of complex managed hosting and cloud computing services to the enterprise market. It owns and manages its own network infrastructure, including five UK data centres, offering a unique 100% uptime guarantee. Services include: Private and Hybrid Cloud, Colocation, Content Delivery Networks, IP Transit, Cloud Storage and Email.
