ASK4
ASK4
ASK4 is an award-winning provider of high-speed Internet solutions and managed data services for multi-tenant accommodation. Partnered with universities, private sector student accommodation providers, residential apartment developers and business, they currently provide internet services to hundreds of thousands of customers across more than 500 sites in the UK and Europe.
The Challenge
ASK4 owns and operates a carrier neutral data centre optimised for the Internet industry. Situated in Sheffield, the data centre is well connected to key network locations in London, Manchester, and Leeds.
At this site, ASK4 was running many of its core services which help make their products run, through back-up Virtual Machines. The company was keen to move away from this back-up system to a cloud-based solution that would have more than one failure point, making their overall backup system more reliable and secure, and helping to futureproof its activities and further development across its multiple sites.
The team at ASK4 had clear ambitions on what they wanted to achieve but they had limited resource in-house to outline, test and implement a system thoroughly. So, they decided to appoint The Curve to assist them.
The Approach
The Curve worked closely with ASK4 to understand how it was currently operating and what it wanted to achieve with the new cloud-based system.
After initial conversations with the team and understanding the internal systems they were working from, The Curve established a proof of concept which outlined and demonstrated the feasibility of introducing a new AWS cloud-based system.
Throughout the implementation process, The Curve regularly tested the system and took overall responsibility in ensuring that it was storing the data correctly.
In four months, the team built and introduced the new system which now provides more secure and reliable backup solutions.
The new cloud-based system can be accessed from multiple sites and does not have to be accessed from the primary site in Sheffield. This means that any backup failures, which could be caused by in-house fires, flooding, hardware, or power failures, are reduced and involve less physical maintenance activities.
Their Thoughts
“When briefing The Curve with this task they understood our team’s high expectations and clearly and sensibly outlined how these would be met in ambitious timeframes.
“Their expertise and approach to feedback throughout the project reassured us that the system would fulfil our requirements and the ever-changing needs of our growing business.
“Having the team at The Curve on board was a real pleasure and we would most certainly recommend them to other suppliers looking for solutions such as this one.”