THE CLIENT – MONEYMATE
MoneyMate is a specialist provider of investment product information management services to global asset managers. Since 1991, we have been working with industry leaders to deliver a range of value-added research and investment data management services that answer the data demands of our global clients. Our business began in the research area, when we developed quantitative fund data aggregation, analysis and reporting tools, for the funds industry in Ireland, Italy, Sweden, South Africa, and Continental Europe. To support this business we collated and cleansed all of the data from each local market and developed a range of data management applications to source and validate the data required for the analytics software.
THE CHALLENGE
Prior to becoming a customer at LDeX, MoneyMate had been solely reliant on a larger data centre provider based in Dublin for a number of years where the company’s servers, systems and infrastructure had been located.
However, due to various circumstances within the business, MoneyMate required an additional site for business continuity and began the search for a reputable and well-connected provider in London in order to give them true geographical resilience. When searching for a secondary provider, the team’s biggest hurdle was that of geographic datacentre redundancy in Ireland with their customers being based in the UK and the US. This is when the decision was made to locate their infrastructure closer to where the company’s clients were based and making it that bit easier for giving clients a tour of the facilities while still being in proximity of the company’s London office.
In the process of touring various datacentres based in central London, the company realised that many of the providers based had their facilities at street level with no fence to protect it from high risk events and this was a major concern to the team. With many of the providers outside central London situated close to flood plains, the company chose LDeX to house its infrastructure.
THE SOLUTION
SUPERIOR DATACENTRE FACILITIES
Situated in Staples Corner in North West London with a 5MVA capacity and in proximity to the M1 and away from flood plains or flight paths, the LDeX1 datacentre was an ideal choice for MoneyMate as the facilities were not shared and was fully owned by the company’s main stakeholders Rob Garbutt and Patrick Doyle based on the premises.
LDeX has been fitted out with best in class technology and client facilities. Some of the datacentres that were viewed had retro fits and were not entirely adequate for what the company wanted. What was particularly attractive about LDeX was that its datacentre and client facilities were built for engineers in mind with numerous work desks, breakout and deboxing areas for easy loading, excellent wifi connections and tool storage lockers. As an Irish customer, this was ideal for MoneyMate as both the management team and technicians could work on the company’s infrastructure, use the hot desks and meet with customers if needed.
REMOTE HANDS SUPPORT
Something that impressed MoneyMate was that in the event that work needed to be done on the rack in LDeX1, the onsite engineers would be able to carry out this work within an hour through the company’s remote hands services which they offer to clients. MoneyMate found that in comparison to other providers, the cost of this was very reasonable. The company found this very reassuring that this service was on offer on a 24x7x365 basis.
ACCESS TO THE SENIOR MANAGEMENT TEAM
With a combined experience of 30 years in the datacentre and networking sectors, the senior team were particularly impressed with the friendliness, knowledge and expertise of the senior management team at LDeX who are always willing to offer guidance and support on any operational or technical issues that arises on a 24x7x365 basis. The team are always willing to give tours of the premises to MoneyMate clients, which is particularly valued by the company.
SECURITY PROCEDURES
Another item which impressed MoneyMate was how resilient the security measures are in place at LDeX. In place, the company has a 2.5m fence for perimeter control providing an effective barrier and a controlled access point to the building. As well as this there are multiple CCTV cameras, a virtual trip wire, a two factor access control system and man trap portal to name but a few of the many physical security measure which the datacentre has in place. With stringent access procedures for all visitors to the site and guidelines for staff, this gave the company the reassurance that their data would not be compromised and racks would be housed in a safe secure offsite environment.
ENERGY PRICING
With the cost of power and electricity rising in Ireland, the company valued that LDeX had a three year agreement with their utility provider meaning that all prices were fixed during that time period. This meant that MoneyMate could get the quality of service without the high price tag and gave complete control of their operational costs for the foreseeable future.
Access to AWS
Having recently expanded its colocation and network services offering by providing its customers direct access onsite at LDeX1 to AWS Cloud Services via euNetworks, this was attractive to the company as it gave the option of using hybrid environments for scaling their infrastructure and disaster recovery needs if needed .
THE RESULTS
Since deploying the company’s servers, infrastructure and systems in the LDeX1 facilities, MoneyMate has received positive feedback from a customer security audit which took place recently.
The business is fully confident that in the event that the company’s engineers are not able to fly over from Ireland to the datacentre, the onsite technicians at LDeX1 will be able to do any work that needs to be in done within an hour.
The company is very satisfied with not only the price of bandwidth, but to have access to a variety of carriers all within the same building enabling ultra-fast low latency for both MoneyMate and its customers in the financial services sector.
