DIY Chain

New Lights Out Data Centre for Europe's Leading DIY Chain.

Europe's leading home improvement and garden centre retailer with over 300 stores in the UK and retail sales of £4 billion in 2010 required an integrated solution that could provide secure remote access to servers and IT assets and accurate metering and reporting of the power consumed by each asset in their data centre.

The client approached AIT for advice on designing a server management solution for their new “lights out” data centre, which would include KVM switching, data cabinets, power & environment monitoring and a remote door locking system.

Problem

The client required a best-of-breed solution that provided a single interface for managing all their data centre devices.

The client also had a particular requirement for the cabinets to be have high cooling efficiency and delivered with their corporate logo and to be pre-labelled with comms-room locations, to help with installation.

Solution

AIT's solution consisted of KVM switching systems, serial management equipment, server cabinets with a bespoke remote power management, environmental monitoring & door locking system.

For the server management requirement, AIT recommended Raritan's ‘Paragon' KVM switch, incorporating the ‘IP Reach' for Remote Access. The Paragon solution was supplemented with Dominion KX2 KVM-over-IP switches and Dominion PX IP PDUs when the second hall of the data centre was opened.

Result

AIT fulfilled the client's requirement for having a single company to deal with that could integrate ‘best-of-breed' solutions. This made it possible to provide a scalable, unified management interface of all the data center devices. AIT demonstrated in-depth knowledge of products and solutions from leading manufacturers and provided the high levels of pre- & post-sales support that the client felt were vital to the success of the project.

The project was completed to schedule within and resulted in 90 bespoke cabinets installed in 2 locations.