SCC Supports AmicusHorizon with Infrastructure Upgrade using HP Storage

“We were really pleased with the solution, it was far more than we expected. We couldn’t ask for any more in terms of performance.” – Martin Crouch, Technology Services Manager

AmicusHorizon is a housing association which provides property and support to over 60,000 residents in the UK.

Some of their infrastructure components were coming to their end of life in terms of reliability, support and cost efficiency, prompting them to consider moving their data into the cloud.

Working with SCC, Amicus Horizon took on a project to upgrade their infrastructure using HP 3PAR storage. It was decided that cloud wasn’t the most effective solution for AmicusHorizon just yet, but the solution SCC proposed allows them to store their own data on premise, while still giving them the opportunity to use cloud services and benefit from enhanced data backup and disaster recovery functionality.

Martin Crouch, Technology Services Manager at AmicusHorizon said: “If our facilities were to go down, we wouldn’t be able to cope with the influx of calls, so we need an infrastructure which is always online. The only way to do that is to have real-time data access. If our systems were to go down for any length of time, it would impede our ability to do that.

“Our backups are much more efficient now. We copy our data to our [disaster recovery] site in almost real time, whereas before it was every 24 hours.

“SCC managed the whole process and provided engineering staff on site to actually set up the new system and help us migrate from our existing systems to the new storage. We were able to do that with no down time for our users.

“The main benefits include a reduction in maintenance. My staff don’t have to manage the infrastructure quite so actively, as it all happens automatically.

“We’ve seen a reduction in cost. With some vendors, we saw that the costs go up quite a lot at the end of the three year term, whereas with SCC, we know what it’s going to cost, regardless of inflationary rises and that sort of thing.”

“Without doubt we’d use SCC for this sort of thing in the future. If I was to describe SCC in three words, they would probably be: flexible, accommodating and honest.”