The way that we work has changed forever.
That shouldn’t shock anyone reading this; from where we work, to how we work, the pandemic created a monumental shift in so many things in our lives. While many will agree this has been for the better (flexible working campaigners for example), there are numerous others who have gasped at the economic impact the pandemic has caused.
It has been estimated that 45% of the UK population has become remote workers over the last two years. As we move to a life post-pandemic, a report from McKinsey and Co estimates 20-25% of employees will continue to work from home.
Whatever the final figure, those who were once based in an office will likely demand a hybrid working pattern once it has been deemed possible to return to the office. This is likely to fuel office downsizing demands (benefitting both staff and the bottom line). Indeed, we have already seen employers like Shell commit to office moves, with the acknowledgement that their full cohort will likely never be in the building at the same time.
However, just because an office may downsize (or house fewer employees) doesn’t mean that their IT needs will reduce too. So, how can organisations considering making this move maintain the same level of IT infrastructure if there is no longer the square footage available to house it on-premises?
Enter colocation.
By no means a new solution, colocation will almost certainly become the norm again for organisations who are faced with an on-premises space challenge. As part of the office move, the servers and rackspace which might have once been housed in the basement can be moved to off-site managed data centres. Organisations still benefit from the same connection, speed and size of hardware space – just with a minimal footprint in their office.
This is something that we, at Brightsolid, have been doing for more than 25 years. We can offer quick access to an organisation’s data within our Tier III data centres in Dundee and Aberdeen. This certification guarantees high standards and 99.98% uptime, while the proximity of our data centres to many of the clients that we work with allows them to meet strict compliance and governance standards. The locality of our centres also means IT teams have local access to their equipment as and when required to access, monitor and update it.
Other areas we can support within our datacentres include:
- Scalability: We can support your business whether you need to increase or decrease the amount of server space in one of our datacentres.
- Security: We hold the Cyber Essentials Plus certification and work with many highly regulated industries. Our Tier III data centres also guarantee businesses as much uptime as possible.
- Connectivity: We have a wide range of telecommunications providers within our data centres including Vodafone, BT, SSE, CityFibre, Tampnet, Speedcast, Rignet, Commsworld, Converged and Highnet. As a carrier-neutral data centre, connectivity is included in our contracts. This means that we deal with connectivity and support under one service level agreement.
If you are considering a change to your office environment and want to know more about our data centres, take a virtual tour here.
Other information you might find useful from us includes: