Ultrafast Fibre, which owns and operates the Ultrafast Broadband network in Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Taranaki, has chosen Dimension Data’s managed cloud facility in Hamilton to host all its data and applications.
These will include communications, business process applications, data applications and geographic information system applications.
The move follows the company recently embarking on a process to select a single provider for all of its cloud workload.
Ultrafast Fibre’s business support manager, Peter Knedler, said the company had chosen to work with a single supplier because it believed that having all its information in one place would give it greater security and the option to provide complete secure lockdown if needed.
“Working with Dimension Data as our single cloud provider meant less complicity, an increased ability to control and manage costs and improved performance by having all of our assets in one place – making things simple and fast,” Knedler said.
He added that the move had also given Ultrafast Fibre the ability to control information through Dimension Data’s self-service real-time cloud control portal, describing this as “a real bonus,” that allowed the company to directly control its cloud assets in real time and with no need for additional service requests.
Ultrafast Fibre also required the flexibility to scale up or down its requirements, and to only pay for what it used. “During the summer holiday period Dimension Data worked with us to shut down all non-essential server workloads,” Knedler said.
“Due to the consumption-based contract, Ultrafast Fibre saved thousands of dollars over this period. Other vendor solutions we looked at just did not offer this level of flexibility.”
Dimension Data next generation data centre practice lead, Marcel Rafter, said Ultrafast Fibre had chosen to work with Dimension Data because it offered a combination of a proven platform and an experienced team.
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“We have been working with Ultrafast Fibre since 2015, and during this time we have built up a trusted relationship,” he said. “Ultrafast Fibre appreciated Dimension Data’s efforts during this time to understand its needs and to help it keep its consumption costs under control.”
Ultrafast Fibre has completed deployment of a 3,000 kilometre fibre optic network to eight central North Island cities and towns under the first tranche of the government’s Ultrafast Broadband initiative and was recently been awarded a new contract to connect a further 12 central North Island communities as part of phase two of the UFB rollout.
In September the Government announced that WEL Networks’ subsidiary, Waikato Networks would take full ownership of Ultrafast Fibre, previously jointly held with Crown Fibre Holdings (CFH), three and a half years earlier than expected.