Six Degrees Group boosts Co-Op’s Growth

The Challenge
To support its business operations, Co-Op’s IT infrastructure consisted of three racks, both in-house and with a basic data centre partner. With business growth imminent, Co-Op knew it needed access to more sophisticated facilities to meet its current and future needs.

The Solution:
In July 2006, Co-Op turned to Six Degrees Group (6DG), seeking a solution to manage its growing business data. Co-Op initially took one rack with 6DG but this has since grown to a ten rack private pod at 6DG’s highly available and highly secure data centre site, Studley. With each rack consisting of around 30 servers, the solution now involves approximately 300 servers.

The new infrastructure allows all of Co-Op’s major IT applications to run through the data centre at Studley. There is a rack allocated to comms, a rack reserved for storage arrays and a rack consisting solely of servers. The solution has been built with growth in mind; eight of the racks are currently in use and two are reserved for future expansion.

Working with BT and Virgin, 6DG has established a high bandwidth Internet connection between the data centre and Co-Op’s head office in Warwick, then out to the Co-Op’s wide area network. There is also a highly resilient Internet break-out built into the solution for disaster recovery purposes. So, if something ever happened to the site at Studley, Co-Op’s Internet connectivity would instantly switch to come through 6DG’s London data centre.

The Results:
· Year-on-year growth: Co-Op has an expanding business and the IT team, through working closely with 6DG, is provisioning for its continued growth and long-term expansion.
· High quality facilities: The size, scope and security of the 6DG facilities means Co-Op can effectively run all applications for its Midlands brands from the 6DG environment.
· Understanding Co-Op’s business: The very close working relationship between the Co-Op IT team and the resident 6DG engineers, means they are able to work effectively on day-to-day tasks as well as bespoke IT projects such as complex firewall configuration.

Sheridan Hindle, Head of IT at The Midcounties Co-operative said: “The team at 6DG has taken great pains to truly understand our business from a strategic point of view. We have a strong working relationship with the engineers there so when it comes to optimising the way our solution works, they are always on hand. In terms of the way we work, having access to an IT solution with inbuilt DR capabilities and the potential to expand at its core is truly valuable. This means Co-Op has the capacity necessary to continue its business growth.”