GB Muri modernises existing data centre and lowers fixed costs

MARKET POSITION

GB Muri is able, through its professional services and customer focus, to position itself as an attractive supplier of internet, television, land lines and mobile services in a regional telecommunications market. Fabian Künzi, Head Telecom: “As a supplier of infrastructure and telecommunications services, we understand the needs of our customers and ensure a high quality of service. We primarily offer products from Quick Line AG – a leading full-service provider of entertainment and communications. Thanks to a complete portfolio, we have been able for years to expand our market share with both private and corporate customers.”

SYNERGY

The competition within the telecommunications market is tangible. “Companies must strengthen their USP’s in order to survive in these competitive times. This also influences the costs and thus GB Muri is always looking for potential synergies. We have reached synergy through the product portfolio of Quickline AG, amongst other things. On the other hand the declining margins in the market are forcing companies to consider better or newer services.”

OWN DATA CENTRE

As a distribution network operator, GB Muri has owned a data centre for years now. “Because of the changing customer demands in the field of availability of telecommunication services and an updated risk analysis, our board of directors came to the conclusion that the infrastructure in the data centre should be modernised. We want to make the infrastructure that is not in use available to customers. By also offering our customers co-location services, the fixed costs in the data centre can be reduced.”

MODULARITY, QUALITY AND PRICE DECISIVE FACTORS

After talking to partners, the name Minkels continued to come up. “We then contacted Minkels, but also talked to a number of other suppliers. We wanted a data centre with a focus on availability. In addition, we also wanted a data centre in which investments would be scalable and the fixed costs could be lowered. In the end, the combination of modularity, quality and price were decisive. This way we have the best of both worlds; we have our own data centre and we can lower the fixed costs by offering co-location services.”

OLD COMPANY BUILDING

The existing data centre is located in an old building. “This makes the installation of, among others, enclosed cold aisles more complex. The enclosed cold aisles separate cold and hot airflows in an energy-efficient manner. In addition we have H20-coolers, racks, cable trays and PDU’s in the facility, among others. But by far the biggest challenge of the project was remodelling while the existing data centre was still in operation. Continuity was constantly a top priority during the remodelling.”

RESULTS

In the meantime the project has almost been finished, with an efficient data centre with a high availability and lower fixed costs as a result through, for example, the offering of co-location services. “We expect savings of around 20% to 25% on our fixed costs. Now that we are fully operating, the focus lies on the training of employees. We expect nothing but good things of the future.”