Case studies
At the heart of Sunspeed’s success are many happy customers. Read about some of the projects we’ve completed below.
1,200
High-end servers and computer racks
Our Client
A major bank with its headquarters based in the city’s financial district of canary wharf. They have achieved several milestones with strategic alliances and acquisitions.
The Challenge
The bank had a requirement to migrate approximately 1,200 high-end servers and computer racks from two central london locations to a computer hosting centre in west london. Sunspeed were invited to quote for the relocation element which would include computer and server decommissioning, professional packaging and recommissioning servers and pcs at the new site, ready for open of business on monday morning.
The Solution
Sunspeed were successful in winning this contract and appointed a dedicated project manager to work with the bank and assess the full scope of the client’s requirements. Sunspeed’s key role would be to take control of all the de-racking, packing, transport and re-racking at the new site. The timescale for this migration was over a period of three months but the work had to be actioned during weekends only to minimise any disruption to the bank’s business. A full site survey was made of all the locations involved to alleviate any possible problems. A small amount of equipment was selected for a pilot move to demonstrate to the customer how sunspeed would handle the project.
The Benefits
The primary move of the project was the largest and involved a team of six of our skilled personnel who labelled and packed each item, shipped them to our secure warehouse facilities for overnight storage ready for delivery and re-installation at the new site on the weekend. This involved ensuring that the equipment was correctly managed to the manufacturer’s standards. Each team had their specific role to play and ensured a smooth operation throughout.
The Verdict
Sunspeed completed the entire project on schedule and within budget and with the result that we have been successful in securing further business with this client.
1,500
Physical devices
Our Client
With operations in more than 70 countries around the world and employing over 78,000 people, Deutsche Bank is one of the leading names in global finance and investment. The Bank prides itself on the unparalleled service it offers its clients across the globe.
The Challenge
The Bank had a requirement to relocate approximately 1,500 devices from a single data centre to a set of new data centres as part of a global IT consolidation project named Compute Landscape Optimisation (CLO). It needed all devices moved, within a set window of opportunity, safely and securely to the new location in conjunction with standby coverage in case of network or hardware failure.
Sunspeed were selected for the project due to the proven service levels already experienced by Deutsche Bank in our dealings with one another. The Bank was also fully knowledgeable of the advanced security measures with regards to IT relocations that Sunspeed offered, and it was fully confident that the service necessary could be provided, along with backup support in case equipment needed to be moved back prior to market openings. Deutsche Bank was confident that Sunspeed could protect its equipment and its business from financial loss.
Sunspeed’s challenge was to provide the relocation in a way that was seamless for the Bank’s business. A number of variables had to be considered, including time differences, financial platforms, market operations, and so on.
The Solution
A plan was devised to pack, relocate, and unpack the equipment over three separate data centres on successive weekends from the late hours of Friday night through until early Saturday morning. A number of OEM mainframe server/storage racks had to be moved, including Oracle Exadata, EMC VNX/VMAX, and HP EVA, along with de-racking and re-racking of the individual servers, which included over 50 fully populated HP blade chassis.
Sunspeed worked with the Deutsche Bank ITF team to de-rack and re-rack the equipment across all sites as planned. All equipment was packed in anti-static flight cases, moved according to routine standards of security and safety, and re-installed in the appropriate racks.
At the start of each week, a project pack was received detailing the equipment to be moved on the coming weekend. Daily business requirements and client commitments meant that equipment levels changed regularly, right up to the actual move day. Sunspeed had to remain flexible throughout in order to see the job through to completion.
The Benefits
By working with Sunspeed, Deutsche Bank was able to get all of its equipment relocated without having to worry about hardware integrity or data security. This enabled it to continue about its business with the knowledge that a seamless transition would be taking place on the weekends, without any loss to business services.
Furthermore, Sunspeed was able to offer the Bank a complete migration solution over consecutive weekends, taking into consideration the risks involved with multiple financial platforms. The relocation was completed across 18 months.
The Verdict
Sunspeed are proud to report that all relocations were successfully completed without any problems. Moreover, while standby was provided for each relocation, the bank never encountered any network or hardware issues requiring a rollback. The project was also completed on schedule resulting in no breach of lease penalties from the source data centre.
Sunspeed’s work for Deutsche Bank is yet another example of its ability to provide safe and secure IT Migration Solutions to the world’s biggest and most important companies. Had Sunspeed failed in the Deutsche Bank project, it could very possibly have resulted in very serious implications to the global financial sector.
Understanding the seriousness of this work, the project was undertaken with the knowledge that our actions could affect global financial services. Sunspeed’s dedicated team of professionals worked hand-in-hand with the Deutsche Bank ITF team to successfully complete this unprecedented project.
As a result of the coordination between Sunspeed and itself, the Bank is now enjoying the benefits of its two new data centres. Its worldwide clients continue to have access to first-class financial services and the detailed customer service Deutsche Bank is known for. Sunspeed continue to have a strong relationship with the Bank and look forward to assisting them on similar projects in the future.
2,762
Devices audited in just 11 days
Our Client
Royal Mail Group is the UK’s designated Universal Postal Service Provider, supporting customers, businesses and communities across the country. They are the only company that has the capability to deliver a ‘one-price-goes-anywhere’, six-days-a-week service on a range of letters and parcels to more than 29 million addresses across the UK. General Logistics Systems (GLS), their European parcels business, operates one of the largest ground-based, deferred parcel delivery networks in Europe.
The Challenge
Royal Mail Group (RMG) engaged Sunspeed to complete a physical hardware audit of their main IT estate, which was spread across ten different Data Centre / Computer Room locations throughout the UK. RMG’s initial estimates where approx. 5,000 devices to be audited. RMG required this information to assist them in their high level planning for their forthcoming relocation and consolidation to a new Data Centre supplier.
As all the equipment was live, and covered by the incumbent’s SLA’s, Sunspeed had to work with a number of restrictions to prevent any breach of service agreement. We had to be escorted at all times, we were not allowed to reach into the racks, and were not permitted to touch any of the equipment.
The Solution
Working in teams of two, Sunspeed’s engineers utilised laptop computers and portable Bluetooth enabled barcode scanners, to create all necessary DCIM (Data Centre Infrastructure Management) information, which resulted in a detailed 12 point asset schedule. In order to reduce any failure due to human error, all the information was cross-checked, and once submitted internally, was subject to another cross-check audit.
The Benefits
The completed asset schedule was a highly detailed asset management tool that allowed the Royal Mail Group to:
- View and manage their IT estate down to the finest detail
- Plan their consolidations and Data Centre Migration project
- Have a working platform to add and record new assets as required
330
Blade servers
Our Clients
Atos is a leading international IT services company that delivers consulting and technology solutions, and systems integration and managed services.
The Project
Sunspeed was tasked with a new hardware build and fit out project for a major UK contract they had secured.
We had to take delivery of 26 blade chassis, 330 blade servers, 104 blade chassis modules, 18 x 2u servers and 130 x network devices, stage all build and configuration activities, and then create a master hardware asset schedule. Sunspeed were then required to securely transport all equipment to two locations, where the installation team was tasked with building out two mirror environments across 28 server racks.
The Challenge
As the equipment arrived, Sunspeed’s engineers cross checked all the boxes and product codes against the shipping manifest to ensure that everything was accounted for. At first look we had received everything apart from the blade servers, but upon closer inspection we removed the blade chassis packing to find all the blade servers had been pre-installed into the chassis. Due to a factory error, they had been randomly installed and the four different configurations hadn’t been labelled. Which was problematic as from the outside, all 330 blade servers looked exactly the same.
The Solution
After talking with the manufacturer we were given roughly 40 pages of configuration notes down to the component level. With the window of opportunity decreasing, and the initial workload doubling, our engineers were able to start work. Once the blade servers had been separated into their four different types, we were able to start building out the blade chassis’ as per the clients build documents.
Due to the delays at the start of the build we had to build both sites in tandem. Our engineers worked around the clock to ensure we met the client deadline. Once built, each chassis, blade server and module needed to be asseted in sequential order, with the chassis being labelled front and back. All information needed to be recorded onto the master hardware asset schedule and rack planner. Sunspeed used mixture of techniques from physical inspection to utilising our handheld Bluetooth barcode scanners to achieve this.
Each install was completed by our Security Cleared technical engineers, and each site was completed as planned, allowing us to complete the overall build and installation project within the tight time frame, allowing our client to get both systems up and running ready for application testing.