The Minit Group, a European leader in the field of fast repair services including shoes, watches and smartphones, has chosen to house the main part of its IT-infrastructure in Interoute’s state-of-the-art colocation data centre in a hybrid IT setup. Interoute, owner operator of one of Europe's largest networks and a global cloud services platform, connects all of the Minit Group branches with each other and the Interoute colocation facility in Ghent, Belgium, across its highly secure MPLS network.
Mister Minit has Belgian roots, is active in thirteen countries and employs more than 2,100 employees, working in 1,100 different stores. The corporate headquarters of the Minit Group in England, France, Switzerland, Poland, Germany and Belgium are interconnected to each other and with the colocation data centre in Ghent by Interoute’s MPLS network. All of these branches work with business critical applications, such as applications for processing orders and financial reports, which require a reliable connection to the central IT infrastructure.
The company used to rely on its own data centre in its Belgian headquarters. However, the use of a single datacentre offered too few options for creating disaster recovery connections. Minit Group therefore decided to start its transition to the cloud and opted for colocation from Interoute, which allows the company’s existing IT networks and infrastructure to connect directly to the global Interoute cloud services platform and draw on these resources as and when needed.
Philippe Barbry, ICT Director at the Minit Group, said, "By partnering with Interoute, our IT department can work more efficiently. The focus of our IT-administrations team shifts to supporting and further developing the business in our shops and online. We can now streamline applications on an international level, and successfully host them in Interoute’s data centre."
Jan Dezutter, Country Manager Belux at Interoute, said, "The reasons Mister Minit chose Interoute are in line with current wider enterprise trends, where business and IT are increasingly integrated. By supporting Mister Minit with ??connectivity, colocation and access to cloud services, we are helping the in-house IT team to focus on developing applications to directly support their business.”
