American Power Conversion (APC), a global provider of
high-availability systems for network-critical physical
infrastructure (NCPI), has announced the first UK hosting partner
to join its Blade Ready programme.
Blade Ready aims to help enterprises plan and implement
high-density applications, such as blade servers. Joining the
endeavour will be Smartbunker, who regards itself as a market
leader for military grade, high-density and intelligent hosting
solutions.
Comments Kelly Smith, managing director, Smartbunker: “When
selecting a hosting partner, customers want to be assured that
their chosen partner has a robust and secure infrastructure coupled
with the capacity and expertise to deploy high-density equipment
without impacting the environment or disrupting other hosted
equipment.”
A further design of Blade Ready is to unite APC with vendors of
complementary NCPI technologies to deliver interoperable products,
solutions and services for blade server NCPI environments. APC says
that Blade Ready members help enterprises assess, design, procure,
stage, implement and interconnect blade servers and related
equipment. Members in this programme include hardware and software
vendors that offer compatibility with blade network
environments.
“With today’s blade server technology driving fully populated
rack densities up to 30kW, the challenge for hosting partners is to
provide operational-continuity service level agreements backed by a
strategic process for bringing new equipment into the environment,”
explains Chriss Fortier-Rolfe, Blade Ready programme director at
APC.
“The Blade Ready programme offers an assessment of a partner
organisation’s readiness to implement a blade environment and, if
ready, can help develop a roadmap for a smooth transition to blades
resulting in operational excellence in a firm’s blade environment.
I’m delighted to say that Smartbunker meets these stringent
requirements,” he adds.