SOMERSET, N.J., and Nottingham, U.K. (October 26, 2005) – Raritan, a leading provider of solutions for managing IT infrastructure, today announced that Experian Ltd., the global information solutions company based in the U.K., will use Raritan's remote management solutions to maintain servers in its new data center.
To accommodate growth, Experian launched an ambitious, multi-million-dollar development effort, whose centerpiece is a new data center to serve its extensive European operations. The 700-server data center, which is expected to grow to 5,000 servers, replaced two processing centers – one of which became Experian's disaster recovery data center.
"Experian's new data center was created to provide our clients with a safe, secure, highly resilient facility for delivering mission-critical services," said Adrian Dyson, head of Experian's Command Centre and Automation, which includes the company's Technology Services group. "We were looking for a secure and flexible solution to help manage all of our IT equipment, which includes Windows® and UNIX® platforms."
Experian chose to standardize on a combination of Raritan's Dominion® KX KVM-over-IP switches and Dominion SX serial-over-IP console solutions for managing their multi-platform servers, and Raritan's CommandCenter® Secure Gateway that provides centralized views of IT equipment in the main and back-up data centers.
"The new data center provides us with greatly improved capabilities to maintain and process client data, as well as providing growth capacity. In addition, operational teams will offer 24/7 year-round support and improved service levels," says Dyson. "We needed a management solution that would help us increase the operational efficiency of the data center and improve uptime of its services."
Experian knew that it needed a system that offered centralized management and secure, audited access. Dyson’s group also determined that it needed to control and administer hundreds of different servers accessed by both internal and external users. Among the reasons Experian selected Raritan's solutions included:
- Multiple tiers of security, including limited physical access to the data center itself due to Raritan's remote management capabilities that enable systems administration to access and work without having to be at the server rack.
- Ability to simultaneously and securely manage multiple types of servers and devices from anywhere through a Web browser and IP connection.
- Scalability to meet future growth.
- Centralized management of all IT equipment, including a complete audit trail, or log, of all activity.
The enterprise-wide IT equipment information that appears on the CommandCenter Secure Gateway screen – down to individual server details – is also displayed on two large 8-by-50-foot video walls in the data center. The video walls – provided by Raritan systems integrator and reseller Comrac Ltd. -- were built to assist the operations team with immediate problem solving, and for training purposes.
"When you consider the added centralized management benefits that CommandCenter brings, it makes it a solution unparalleled in today's marketplace," said Dyson. "Also, being appliance-based solutions, they do not rely on a Windows platform for operation. Raritan's solution offers a level of flexibility, scalability, centralized management and high levels of security that their competitors could not match," said Dyson.
About Experian (http://www.experian.com/)
Experian is the global leader in providing value-added information solutions to organizations and consumers. It has an unrivaled understanding of individuals, markets and economies around the world. Experian provides information, analytics, decision-making solutions and processing services. It assists organizations in understanding their markets and customers and helps them find, develop and manage profitable customer relationships to make their businesses more profitable. Experian promotes greater financial health among consumers by enabling them to understand, manage and protect their personal information and helping them control financial aspects of key life events. Experian works with more than 50,000 clients across diverse industries, including financial services, telecommunications, health care, insurance, retail and catalog, automotive, manufacturing, leisure, utilities, e-commerce, property and government. A subsidiary of GUS plc with headquarters in Nottingham, UK, and Costa Mesa, Calif., Experian's 12,000 people in 28 countries support clients in more than 60 countries. Annual sales exceed $2.5 billion. For more information, visit the company's Web site at http://www.experian.com/.