Partner Article

Technology experts help port turn the tide

A partnership with a niche IT technology company has seen the Port of Tyne strengthen its IT disaster recovery platform and adopt new technology that will reduce its energy bills by £20,000.

SITS Group has helped the Port to create a more resilient IT backup and disaster recovery platform across the 600-acre site.

Experts from SITS Group consultancy team spent four weeks conducting a capacity planning exercise which resulted in the adoption of virtualisation technology, and reducing the number of physical servers needed from 28 down to just three.

“Virtualisation works by combining all the available resources and constantly adjusting usage according to needs dynamically, so that every server is working equally hard and at the correct capacity,” explains Phil Cambers, commercial director of Newcastle-based SITS Group.

“Virtualisation technology also brings green benefits. The Port’s previous server estate was generating 40 tonnes of CO2 a year but the new structure has reduced that to 15 tonnes – that’s the equivalent of taking seven cars off the road every year, and this alone should save the Port over £20,000 in energy costs.”

Ian Blake, IT manager at the Port of Tyne said: “This is a key investment in improving the Port’s IT infrastructure. The driver for the initial project was our need to create a more resilient disaster recovery platform, which would ensure the Port would be unaffected in the event of any disaster or interruption caused by the loss of a server or application being unavailable.

“Our IT team is now free to concentrate on developing new technologies to increase the productivity of the business.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .