Viridian Housing has recently completed the transformation of its IT service infrastructure and datacentre which is now available as a cloud-based service from Exponential-e. The move to the cloud will provide Viridian’s 850 employees with a more flexible working environment and shift its ICT costs to a more efficient pay-by-usage model.
Viridian’s cloud access is supported by Exponential-e’s national 100 gigabit Ethernet core, Layer 2 VPLS network. A network link from the datacentre connects Viridian’s London headquarters with its regional offices in the Midlands and West Sussex. This high-capacity network is critical to ensuring solid access to Viridian’s cloud-based services, which manage everything from customer enquiries and payments to supplier and contractor coordination.
Phil Copperwheat, head of systems, Viridian Housing, said, “We needed to align IT costs more closely to the size and shape of the business and this informed our decision to move to a cloud-based model. Exponential-e’s solution has been critical to enabling us to deploy the right technologies to meet our business goals.”
Exponential-e has also installed an end-to-end management service that oversees Viridian’s critical systems, including a virtual datacentre and disaster recovery. This guarantees that Viridian’s critical data is constantly backed up and provides it with rapid access to any necessary information in the case of an unexpected outage.
Mukesh Bavisi, managing director, Exponential-e, said, “Rather than investing in bespoke, internal ICT infrastructure that is difficult and expensive to expand or adapt, Viridian can now access services on a pay-per-use basis. For example, it could pay for additional cloud storage to manage a spike in activity during a particular month and then return to a lower level when demand falls.”
Viridian started researching potential suppliers in March last year. The project then began in July 2012 and was completed two months later.
