Loughborough University Sports Hybrid Cloud With Logicalis

Logicalis and Loughborough University Strike Strategic Partnership to Deliver Long-Term ICT Efficiencies Via Cooperative Cloud

SLOUGH, England, March 3, 2011 - Loughborough University (www.lboro.ac.uk/) is to deploy Logicalis'
Cooperative Cloud to cost-effectively meet the long-term capacity demands of
its growing research, teaching and enterprise services. As part of a
strategic IT partnership, Logicalis (www.uk.logicalis.com/) will
design and build an on-site, bespoke private cloud fully integrated with an
off-site, cooperative hosted cloud. This single, scalable architecture will
provide unlimited scope for future capacity provisioning and is set to save
the University over 640 metric tonnes of COsquared per annum and significant
cost-savings.

Dr Phil Richards, Director of IT at Loughborough University, comments,
"Our data centre was built and designed 40 years ago. It has served us well,
but is showing its age through a poor PUE (Power Utilisation Efficiency)
rating and limited capacity. We were open to innovation from the IT sector to
bring us the most cost-effective and creative ways to build a more holistic
and scalable IT architecture that would grow with us for the long-term.

'Precise capacity planning more than a couple of years in advance is
nigh-on impossible in our sector. While other education establishments are
investing millions in new data centre builds to increase capacity and
efficiency, it became clear during the tender process that a cloud model
would provide the most strategic option for Loughborough both now, and into
the future."

According to Richards, in assessing a range of private and hybrid cloud
services, Logicalis stood out for its compelling credentials in developing
public sector services coupled with a uniquely tangible cloud; "I was able to
visit the data centre and see the Logicalis Cooperative Cloud in action. No
other provider was able to make the cloud real in this way, which was an
important ingredient for us to assess the service capability and risk to our
business. Logicalis' connection to JANET was also a key differentiator - it
was clear they had made significant commercial investment into their cloud
infrastructure so we wouldn't have to."

Loughborough's on-site cloud is built on enterprise class technology from
Cisco, NetApp and CA to create a self-contained, highly virtualised and
extremely compact environment. This provides enough compute, storage and
network capacity to meet immediate local demand, while long-term future
capacity, on-demand burst capacity and disaster recovery capability is
provided by the Logicalis Hosted Cloud.

Simon Daykin, CTO of Logicalis UK, explains, "We have been able to
leverage the innovation of our private cloud design and hosted cloud services
to transform the future of server and storage provisioning at the University.
The Logicalis Virtual Container technology allows Loughborough to
move real IT services back and forth between on-site dedicated and
off-site shared hosted clouds rapidly, reliably and without application or
infrastructure changes.

"For Loughborough, cloud was about more than simply consolidating
existing servers through virtualisation; it was about solving real business
issues. They had the foresight to use cloud to tackle a problem that would
historically have required significant physical data centre reconstruction.
Working collaboratively, we have built a new IT consumption model for Higher
Education. One that I am confident will be adopted widely as the sector looks
to replace aging data centres, use cloud for on-demand capacity for seasonal
burst, or as a service disaster recovery."

The strategic partnership also includes a Unified Communications &
Collaboration suite deployed for 3,000 University staff and 1,600 Business &
Community Engagement tenants across the campus. In addition, the deployment
of a new LAN and WAN will create a secure, robust and highly available IT
infrastructure, which is paramount as Loughborough prepares for its duties as
The Official Preparation Camp Headquarters for Team GB prior to the London
2012 Olympic Games.

Finally, the partnership will see Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
implemented across University's corporate desktops. Initially rolled out
amongst administrative and clerical users to reduce processing power and
centralise support, Loughborough plans to extend the VDI project to the
virtual learning environment in the future. Here, Loughborough University and
Logicalis are exploring the possibilities for virtual application delivery
that will enable students to access learning tools outside of the computer
room - anytime, anyplace, anywhere.

Tom Kelly, MD of Logicalis UK, concludes, "At a time when efficiency in
the education sector is vital, the strategic nature of our partnership with
Loughborough sees us fully committed to providing ongoing innovation that
will continue to deliver significant environmental and economic savings."

About Logicalis

Logicalis is an international provider of integrated information
and communications technology (ICT) solutions and services founded on a
superior breadth of knowledge and expertise in communications &
collaboration; data centre; and professional and managed services. For more
information, visit www.uk.logicalis.com.

    For further information please contact:

    Andrew Parker/Jennifer Manning/Charlotte Sandy
    Cohesive Communications
    T: +44(0)1291-626200
    E: logicalis@cohesive.uk.com

For further information please contact: Andrew Parker/Jennifer Manning/Charlotte Sandy, Cohesive Communications, T: +44(0)1291-626200, E: logicalis at cohesive.uk.com