Give customers a data centre that suits them: Thomas Duryea Logicalis

​With Thomas Duryea Logicalis' Evan Duryea.

Where do you host customer data?

For us, the data centre has traditionally been on customer premises, however over the years that’s changed. The physical location is becoming less important and the focus is now on where the applications are going to be the most manageable and secure. Our business still encompasses on-premises equipment, but we are also managing customers in our own IaaS platform. 

When did you first get involved in data centre services?

We were originally consulting with customers about their own internal data centres, but in 2005 we started working with them on using VMware and shared storage to greatly simplify the traditional data centre. Over time, we moved into IaaS, co-location and the cloud. 

What credentials do you have that apply to the data centre?

For data centres on customer premises, we have all the necessary vendor certifications around key products such as EMC, Dell and Cisco. For data centre as a service, IaaS and those types of services, we have ISO 27001 and we see that as very important. The co-located facilities we use all have to have their own certifications to ensure an end to end security posture. 

Have you heard about any cool developments in the data centre space recently?

The most important thing is that customers need to be able to run their applications and workloads in the environment that best suits them. 

Can you tell us about a recent deployment you have done?

We had one customer that underinvested in IT for years and was about to move offices. They decided not to set up a physical data centre as part of a broader project that involved delivering a new end-user experience; they moved everything out to IaaS and Office 365. They went from having everything on-premises to nothing on-premises.

What is driving customers’ data centre investments?

The key driver for customers is to not have data centres or blinking lights anymore. They also don’t want to invest in the team that looks after the blinking lights. Data centres are extremely important, but they don’t add intrinsic value in the way that workloads and applications do, so outsourcing is the key.

Data centres are...?

Data centres are vitally important, but also irrelevant in a way. They need to work and they need to be perfect, as the business depends on the services they provide. But no-one really cares what flavour it is or what colour they are. Think about an aeroplane - the engine is arguably an essential component in your survival, but can you tell me who made the engine on the last flight you took?