CSC

In March 2008 CSC was the first company to move into the TelecityGroup’s recently opened state of the art data centre in the Netherlands, Amsterdam: Amstel Business Park. CSC’s selection process was based on growing demand for outsourcing and its dated in-house facilty in the Netherlands.

“Even when working against the clock TelecityGroup has always delivered what they promised to CSC. We are extremely pleased with the results.“

Harry van Zurk,
CSC Project Manager

The decision was made based on its clients’ strict demands as well as the demands of CSC itself, in conjunction with CSC’s worldwide green IT programme. Not only is TelecityGroup’s Amstel Business Park the first data centre in the Netherlands that complies completely with Amsterdam city council guidelines on energy efficiency, but it also has every ISO-certificate.

With 90,000 employees CSC is one of the world’s largest IT service providers. From its divisions; Professional Services, Market Solutions and Managed Services it offers ICT solutions to governmental and commercial organisations. In the Netherlands CSC’s head office is located in Bunnik and has 600 employees. The Managed Services business unit covers the outsourcing activities of CSC, which include, amongst others, infrastructure management for its clients.

Restricted data

The infrastructure management is divided into management of the network, the data centre and the housing. Henk Postma, Director Managed Services for CSC comments: “For infrastructure management CSC has various own data centres all over the world. CSC Netherlands uses, among others, data centres in London and Copenhagen for its clients. Some clients in the Netherlands however, stipulate in the contract that data must remain in the Netherlands. An example is Het Landelijk SchakelPunt, because of its privacy guidelines. Other clients in the Netherlands require a data centre that lies within a certain distance because of a high degree in mutations.”

To be able to serve these clients, CSC had owned its own data centre in Apeldoorn since 1986. In 2008, however, the building had to make way for new housing developments. Postma explains: “It was clear to us that in order to continue to serve our clients properly in the future, we would have to heavily invest in new data centre infrastructure. Due to fast developments in the market this would mean a continuing and capital-intensive investment. As data centre management is not one of our main activities in the Netherlands, we decided to outsource to a specialist”.

Highly qualified and perfectly on time

CSC has ‘Green IT’ high on its agenda worldwide. As a result of its initiatives in this area CSC is in the top 12 of ‘Green IT Vendors’ compiled by influential IT publication ComputerWorld. To retain this position CSC assesses the footprint of all of its activities through measurement and monitoring. Energy efficiency is a focal point in its own data centres, but was also an important criterion for the selection of a data centre in the Netherlands. In addition there were strict demands for security and quality control, specifically the certificates ISO-27001:2005 and ISO-9001:2000.

Henk Postma explains: “If we can demonstrate to potential clients that the data centre meets these demands when it comes to security and quality control, it increases our chances considerably.”

When it comes to ISO-certifications and the requirements of energy efficiency TelecityGroup meets the demands and wishes of CSC and its clients. When it came to planning and implementation, the time factor played a crucial part in the successful cooperation between both organisations.

CSC Project Manager Harry van Zurk comments: “Even when working against the clock TelecityGroup has always delivered what they promised to CSC. We are extremely pleased with the results.”

CSC offices abroad also have the opportunity to work with TelecityGroup. Postma explains: “CSC EMEA also influences the decision for TelecityGroup. In countries without CSC data centres, where clients request local facilities, it is a natural conclusion to work with TelecityGroup."

Future

For some clients the infrastructure move will happen shortly. Harry van Zurk comments: “Our clients should not be aware that the move is taking place. For this reason, we wanted to move the equipment in parts, but the existing set-up – the cables, for instance - did not allow the removal of individual racks. So we took the opportunity to consolidate and virtualise the infrastructure, thereby enhancing the efficiency even further.”

Henk Postma: “Outsourcing is no longer only done by big companies, smaller parties also want to outsource the management of their infrastructure including the data centre. With regard to equipment as well as to rules and regulations the market developments are becoming more and more difficult for them to keep up with. We find TelecityGroup to be dependable, innovative, qualitative and very efficient, and will be working to implement flexible upscaling. These are values that are also present in the CSC organisation which is why we expect a long and successful partnership with TelecityGroup.”

CSC chose TelecityGroup because:

• TelecityGroup is a dependable partner that honours all agreements
• TelecityGroup has all the necessary quality certificates, such as ISO-27001:2005 and ISO-9001:2000
• Amstel Business Park complies with the criteria of CSC’s Green IT programme when it comes to energy efficiency

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