BT, a provider of communications solutions and services, has chosen NetApp to provide the storage infrastructure to support their new Virtual Data Center (VDC).

 

The service provider is offering a multi-tenanted service for mid-sized and larger businesses that want to move all or part of their IT resources onto a pay for use platform. The two companies already share a successful business relationship and their confidence in NetApp made BT (News - Alert) chose their hardware for VDC.

 

BT expects their VDC will encourage customers to move from tailored hosting arrangements to a service that allows organizations to buy the exact capacity they require. An entire data center can be configured from a single console and will be able to provision servers, storage, and network resources with built-in resilience and business continuity.

 

NetApp will allow BT to automate the day-to-day storage management resources needed as part of the package. With this capability, BT's engineers can pay more attention to revenue generating activities.

 

A combination of blade service architecture, NetApp storage systems and virtualization software ensures that BT customers have their infrastructure and Windows-based applications up and running on the VDC in just five days. Existing VDC customers are then able to quickly deploy a virtual server.

 

The NetApp storage infrastructure takes care of a lot of basic storage management, and this means the storage infrastructure requires very little day-to-day support.

 

Craig Parker, head of global IT services propositions at BT Global Services (News - Alert) is pleased with the scalability of NetApp hardware and its ease of use. Both factors enable them to fulfill customer provisioning orders made via VDC's self-service portal in a rapid and cost effective manner.

 

"With NetApp, BT can provide a flexible, cost-effective alternative to in-house data centers," said Patrick Rogers, vice president of Solutions and Alliances at NetApp. "BT utilized the twin technologies of server and storage virtualization -- already proven in their own data centers -- to deliver IT as a Service. NetApp is excited to be a foundational element in their VDC architecture."