Flexibility and responsiveness underpin ambitious growth plans for Hostopia

As one of the fastest growing web hosting organisations in the world, Ontario-based Hostopia puts a strong priority on responsiveness, technical prowess and flexibility in all of its partners. That's just what it found in eircom when it was looking for a co-location partner for its first ever European data centre.

Although less than a decade old, Mississauga, Ontario-based Hostopia is one of the fastest growing and best established global Web hosting organisations, providing internet services to other telecommunications companies and Internet service providers. The company's rapid expansion and its need to better serve its European customers led Hostopia to conduct a thorough search for a highly capable European partner - someone with not only cutting-edge data centre facilities, but also the skills and flexibility to allow Hostopia to meet aggressive market ambitions.

"We looked at the Docklands in London as well as a number of other sites all around Europe," said Hostopia's Chief Technology

Officer, Dirk Bhagat. "Power was a big concern for us, and also having a connection to central points in Europe. It also came down to finding a facility that would be able to accommodate our size and our growth. eircom met all of that. From the beginning, we also had a real connection to the folks in eircom - so many things are done on relationship, and we felt we could trust these people. In the course of our relationship, that's been borne out."

Less than twelve weeks after the initial meeting, the contract was agreed and rollout completed, an unusually rapid implementation phase which allowed Hostopia to meet an unmoveable deadline, and which speaks volumes about the close working relationship forged. Hostopia is now equipped with the connectivity and support that has successfully supported new customer acquisition as its expands further into Europe and rest of world:

Carrier neutral, state-of-the-art data centre: Hostopia was one of the first anchor tenants in the new eircom managed services data centre in Clonshaugh, Ireland's most technologically advanced centre. To meet its customers' service requirements Hostopia relies on the world-class connectivity, including carrier neutrality, available at Clonshaugh. It also benefits from the centre's highly advanced power, cooling, fire suppression and biometric security measures, as well as the green technologies that minimise environmental impact.

True flexibility to accommodate business needs: As well as providing a flexible commercial model to faciliate Hostopia's business goals, eircom accommodated its needs at every stage of implementation, including adapting floor layout to more closely match the design Hostopia uses globally. "eircom was extremely flexible - they understood exactly what we were trying to achieve and accommodated us," Dirk recalled. "This isn't always something you find in data centres, who can to try to force you into a rigid model."

Scalability to suit rapid growth: Hostopia has taken a caged area and rack space at Clonshaugh, with eircom providing managed high speed internet connectivity. The company's expansion plans can be accommodated within the 125,000 square-foot centre, including Hostopia's need for increased bandwidth in line with its existing data centres. This means that Hostopia can tailor its ICT investment to when and where it is needed, as it grows. "We're always trying to look at new business opportunities and we're pretty aggressive about our European strategy," Dirk said. "We're talking to eircom about how to ramp-up with them, and again we appreciate their flexibility on expansion space."

eircom responsiveness helps Hostopia deliver on its service requirements: "Like the hosted services eircom provides to us, a lot of our market services are also 'on-demand'," Dirk said. "And we have to process new requirements in a matter of days, not weeks. With eircom, we're working with people who understand the importance of this to our customers and have the ability to process our change requests right away." Additionally, Clonshaugh's European location lets Hostopia meet its clients' data privacy needs, and offers Hostopia the ability to seek new European clients for whom data privacy concerns are paramount.
 

Staying close to Hostopia's business objectives

According to Hostopia, the working relationship has been so successful because of eircoms clear comprehension of Hostopia's business objectives, and eircom's willingness to help, as one enterprise to another. This extends not only to the details - like agreeing to store Hostopia's equipment, or immediately sourcing European power cables when the North American fittings didn't work. It also encompasses a willingness to show commercial flexibility in terms of ramp-up, payment terms and future space.

"In our experience with worldwide data centres providers, eircom is among the best we've had," Dirk said. "It's a very closely knit team, and everybody there is knowledgeable. We are always able to meet the decision-makers, and they're business focused, which makes it so much easier. We have the sense that we are dealing with people who understand what our business requirements are and what their own business abilities are, and they work to bridge those together. That's invaluable".