Embracing Network Functions Virtualisation: A Competitive Edge for Datanet

Datanet, a UK-based data hosting and connectivity services provider, was facing several challenges that necessitated a change in its data centre network. Firstly, the network equipment was nearing its end-of-life, raising concerns about its long-term viability. Given that Datanet's customers required highly reliable services with minimal downtime, a future-proofed and high availability network was essential. Secondly, as Datanet's services grew more successful and the volume of backup and recovery services increased, it needed to upgrade its network capacity from 1 Gbps to 10 Gbps to keep pace with traffic volumes. Upgrading the existing equipment would have required a substantial investment, almost equivalent to replacing it completely, prompting Datanet to look for alternative solutions. Lastly, Datanet had experienced a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that its previous vendor had struggled to deal with satisfactorily. It was keen to deploy comprehensive security throughout its new infrastructure as a fundamental design feature, rather than an add-on.

Datanet is a UK-based company that has been providing data hosting and connectivity services to businesses around London for 20 years, specialising in backup and recovery. The company was founded by Conleth McCallan, who recognised the need for hosted rack space that could provide a higher power allowance for customers. Many of Datanet's customers are specialist IT companies themselves, who select Datanet’s infrastructure to deliver their own services. Datanet is privately owned, with the head office and highly experienced staff operating from its own data centre in Fleet in the U.K., as well as two additional data centre facilities in London.