Executive summary
Challenge: BETE Ltd is a small UK business with a big difference: all of its employees work from home, meaning they require reliable access to all business applications and data.
Solution: Claranet was chosen to provide cloud services to enable better performance for BETE's mobile working.
Result: By using Claranet’s hybrid Cloud hosting and integrated MPLS network, BETE's employees have total availability and faster access to the applications they need.
Service availability and accountability
A distributor of industrial spray nozzles, BETE employs eight staff and has an annual turnover of over £1m, yet – excluding its warehouse – it does not have a central business premises. BETE has made working from home one of the defining characteristics of its business. The money saved from renting business premises can instead be ploughed back into the business, giving the company a major cash flow advantage.
BETE’s employees therefore require ultra-reliable access to business applications and data. To improve service availability and accountability, BETE looked to consolidate to one provider from its existing multiple supplier model.
Cloud services for mobile working
Claranet cloud services has supported BETE's commitment to mobile working through our integrated managed hosting and network solution, which combines the award winning IaaS Virtual Data Centre (VDC) with MPLS network connectivity. The shift to the VDC service has meant BETE have access to scalable computer resources, while the MPLS network has provided an increase in reliability, speed and security.
One of the key advantages of Claranet VDC is that it provides BETE with a “burst” capacity of extra RAM for periods of high demand. Furthermore, the VDC is integrated with Claranet’s own core MPLS network. This enables BETE to upgrade and simplify the networking component of its service.
The money that we save on renting, heating and running an office means that we can invest in the very best IT and networking services on the market.
Of all the providers Claranet stood out because of the quality of its infrastructure, including its fully-integrated MPLS network, as well as the fact that they obviously understand the imperative of maximum up-time to our business.
Marketing Manager, BETE
Results from hybrid cloud hosting
Since moving to Claranet’s hybrid Cloud hosting and integrated MPLS network in mid-2011, BETE Ltd’s homeworking employees have experienced near-total availability.
It’s just incredibly reliable. By any realistic standard of measurement, we have had 100 per cent up-time. Frankly, you would not expect that level of reliability with a traditional business model of in-house, premises-based IT; to get that from a remote working platform is quite astonishing.
The virtual environment has offered increased flexibility to meet changing demand without extra expense traditionally required for additional physical servers. All that is required is an upgrade in RAM.
The integrated MPLS is faster and more reliable than the old ADSL connections and it has removed the need for multiple firewalls and encryption. BETE are saving 10 per cent on encryption alone, as well as simpler network management.
While some firms might be scared of homeworking because of the difficulties of monitoring staff, our employees have all responded wonderfully to the trust that we have placed in them. It’s the same with Claranet: they have earned our trust, and we plan to move all of our remaining physical hosting onto Claranet’s virtual platform within a couple of years.