Case Study - Railway Company Rents Servers, Storage and Networking to support Data Centre Migration
Background
A British Railway company approached Intelligent Servers when they were looking for a cost-effective hardware rental solution for their 10-week project, which involved decommissioning their current 10-rack communication room at Head Office, and moving their Server, Storage and Networking hardware to a Data Centre 500 yards away.
Industry: Railways Business size: 2500+ employees Location: Derby, UK Hardware: HPE DL360 Gen9 Servers, Cisco Network Switches, HPE 3PAR StoreServ Budget: £20k Objective: Cost-effective rental of IT hardware to enable the easy transition to new infrastructure | casestudy |  |
Using Rental IT Hardware to Support Data Centre Migrations
The company required HPE 3PAR SAN Storage and HPE ProLiant Servers to be able to migrate all of the VMware Virtual Machines from their current Production Servers and SAN over to the HPE ProLiant Servers and HPE 3PAR SAN Intelligent Servers provided. They were then able to shut down and move their Production Servers and SAN to the NODE4 Data Centre over the road.
The rental agreement included five HPE DL360 Gen9 Servers, each configured with dual Intel Xeon E5-2650v4 Processors, 512GB of Memory, 292GB Storage, along with Controllers, Adapters, Power Supplies and Rail kits. They also required HPE 3PAR StoreServ 7450C Storage Arrays with 36 920GB SSDs, as well as two Cisco Nexus 93108TC Network Switches. The build came with all the Adapters, Converters, Rail Kits, SFPs and Cables required for a complete installation. All of the hardware was fully configured by our HP Specialists and thoroughly tested, before being sent as a same day dispatch, meaning the company could start on their project immediately.
Once the Production Servers and SAN were back online within the Data Centre, the company was then able to migrate Virtual Machines over their WAN Connection from the rented HPE 3PAR SAN and Servers, back onto their Production Servers and SAN within the Data Centre.
We know that integrating IT systems into new infrastructure is not always a simple task however, all hardware was backed by a warranty for the full duration of the project, with our team of technical trained experts on hand to provide support if there were any issues.
The total cost of renting the hardware came to £20,000, whereas if the company was to buy the equipment it would have cost over £80,000. Choosing to rent our quality, refurbished hardware saved them tens of thousands of pounds; meeting their project requirements at only a fraction of the cost.
Easy & Affordable Rental Solutions from Intelligent Servers
At Intelligent Servers, we offer a range of rental options for long, medium or short term IT hardware requirements. Our rental options are a cost-effective way of meeting your business needs in a number of situations, such as for data centre relocation, to cope with fluctuating capacity, reduce costs for short term project requirements, or stay up to date without the huge initial outlays of buying IT hardware.
The British Railway company saved thousands of pounds by choosing to rent professionally refurbished hardware from Intelligent Servers for their short term project. With the hardware dispatched the same day and ready to deploy, they were able to get started on their project straight away.
The rental agreement was tailored around their specific hardware and project requirements, with the option to extend the rental agreement if their project overran. And, with no worries about depreciation or selling the equipment, as once their project had finished, we simply collected the hardware.
Key Benefits
- Thousands of pounds saved by choosing to rent quality refurbished hardware
- Configured to their exact requirements and ready for immediate deployment
- Fast configuration and same day dispatch ideal for mission-critical requirements
- Over 250,000 IT parts in stock, ready to ship
- HP hardware experts available to give professional technical advice
If you would like to find out more about our IT hardware rental services, please get in touch with our team on 01423 223430 or email sales@intelligentservers.co.uk.