BT Global Services to launch Virtual Data Center

BT (News - Alert) has restructured its Global Services business after "unacceptable performance" led to the group losing almost $2B due to cost overruns on big contracts. Now the former incumbent operator has announced that it will launch a Virtual Data Center (VDC) service that targets large business and public sector organizations. 

The spin is the provision of a virtualized infrastructure platform that will enable customers to consume their IT and networking infrastructure as a service and form the base for future cloud services. 

In addition, the operator indicated that this is the first of several networked IT product and service innovations and updates that will be announced this year.

The VDC service will be rolled-out across datacenters in EMEA in order to provide enterprise-class services.  Customers will be able to purchase virtualized components and access them over a pre-provisioned infrastructure.

BT will also offer servers, storage, networks and security that are provisioned through an online portal. This will allow customers to change the infrastructure in real-time throughout the duration of the contract.

Roy Illsley, Senior Research Analyst at the Butler Group said, “Any Infrastructure as a Service offering that can provide a platform where organizations can scale their computing, network, and storage requirements in real time, according to their needs, will have obvious appeal.”

Dustin Kehoe, Principal Analyst at Current Analysis (News - Alert) also commented, “BT is one of the first movers in Europe to market its infrastructure as a service offer and the only global provider that will be deploying this service across a network of data centers both in the UK and Europe.”