Managed Data Centre

SAS has selected Digital Realty (who has invested over £2 billion in data centre assets since 2004) as its primary European DC partner. This decision reflects SAS’s customer commitment to deliver IT solutions built to a high standard, not down to a price point. Our Redhill Data Centre facility is a hub through which we offer a range of flexible services to our customers and is our primary hosting facility for our own platforms.

The services available from our DC are designed to help our customers enhance agility, reduce risk and save cost. We have identified 10 services in the paragraphs below which have those customer benefits in mind. They include both Carrier and Data Centre Diversity ; Fast Connect (which provides colocation capacity on-demand); Hosted Bonded 3G/4G to help bring new offices on-net in days, not weeks; through to a simple helping hand with our ‘Remote Hands’ service.

For a comprehensive guide to our Managed Data Centre services, download your free brochure today.

The attributes detailed below underpin our decision to partner with the best and not get distracted by playing at property management. We are very clear that SAS having end-to-end ownership of Cloud infrastructure is not in the best interest of our customers, nor indeed ours. Unlike some, we do not try to lock customers into our Cloud, or squirt a rigid portfolio of applications to them. We remain flexible. We acknowledge Digital Realty’s £2billion investment and we leverage it for our customers.

Instead of investing in infrastructure, we have invested many millions in our monitoring and management systems and specialist staff. We’ve done this so that we can provide complete flexibility for our customers. Our solutions blend the most appropriate technology and the best vendors. Our systems then see across that composite of infrastructure, network and application layers to pull back the performance statistics which we translate into useful business intelligence.

Multiple Cross Links

Following our decision to engage Digital Realty, we transitioned our primary monitoring and management platforms to their Redhill DC. We have an office there and a dedicated colocation capability also. Redhill is ideally placed just outside of the M25 ring and only 20 miles or so from our NOC and Horsham head office.

The two-storey 96,000 sq ft building shares multiple crosslinks with other regional DC’s in and around the London area (and nationally) to enable carrier backhauling and seamless access to SAS’s suite of services. If you would like more details please contact us.

Redhill DC Specification

Our Redhill Data Centre is of Tier 3+ standard with N+1 for cooling and secondary power and 2N for UPS. It has biometric scan, 24/7/365 on-site security and full CCTV access recording. We have a limited number of racks available for immediate deployment. The full specification is shown below:

The SAS Difference

SAS’s data centre and carrier strategy brings together three key components to enable customers to turn their DC requirements into reality in days rather than months. These are (1) multiple gigabit connections into BT’s IP VPN / VPLS networks (2) world class colocation facilities (3) flexible connectivity including the Internet, Bonded 3G/4G and Satellite enabled solutions.

But it’s not just about the technology. It’s also about 25 years’ network and infrastructure experience accrued from 3,000 projects annually across 65 countries that makes SAS’s capability a little special. These attributes have resulted in a string of awards in recent years including multiple ‘ Partner of the Year ’ awards from leading carriers and vendors.

10 SAS DC Services Simplified

The detail below is a simplified overview showing ten services available from our Redhill Data Centre facility. These are summarised in the graphic at the foot of the page. Services such as our Bonded 3G/4G and Satellite proposition are covered in more detail within the appropriate section of our website.

1. Data Centre Diversity

Our Redhill facility has multiple cross-connects with nine regional DCs and we have immediate colocation capacity in some of these. We also have Metronet and National reach.

2. Fast Connect

We have existing multiple gigabit connectivity into BT’s IP VPN and VPLS core networks (BT IP Connect and BT Ethernet Connect) enabling both BT and SAS customers to establish colocation facilities in days, not months. Think of it as ‘ Data Centre on Demand ’.

3. Carrier Diversity

Outside of our own fully managed connections into BT’s core networks, our Redhill DC has multiple connections into other major carriers including Colt, Virgin, Verizon and Level 3 . This enables us to ‘mix-and-match’ different networks where required to build the best solution for our customers.

4. Flexible Colocation

We provide secure, power resilient rack space for ¼, ½ and full racks with no minimum contract period. We also provide private suites. Power is available from 3, 4 or 5kw per rack (or upwards) and we provide server monitoring & management as a chargeable service.

5. Direct Internet Access

By connecting to our platforms, we can provide customers direct Internet access with dedicated firewalls managed by the customer - or by SAS.

6. Managed Firewall

We use carrier-grade Cisco firewalls to deliver enterprise-strength security and performance as a multi-tenanted managed service.

7. Equipment Relocation

We provide a complete ‘lift and shift’ service to support the relocation of your on-premise servers / hardware to our Redhill DC. All racks are pre-cabled for power and connectivity.

8. Remote Hands

We are able to provide remote hands support for our colocation customers. This may include aspects such as accepting equipment deliveries and ensuring safe storage; through to adding, removing or verifying a carrier demarcation; or power cycling, soft booting and more.

9. Hosted Bonded 3G/4G

Our hosted bonded 3G/4G service is a fully managed and 24/7 monitored rapid and temporary deployment solution for data connectivity. It bonds multiple 3G/4G connections across multiple network operators into a single, resilient and secure SSL tunnel. This SSL tunnel connects (via SAS’s Redhill DC) to the customer’s WAN.

10. Satellite Broadband (KA Band)

We are currently able to provide standard satellite internet access at up to 20 Mbps download and 2 Mbps upload speeds. For 2015 we are designing a secure service that overcomes the legacy issues associated with satellite broadband connectivity.