GlassHouse Technologies Enters into Strategic Partnership with Cable&Wireless Worldwide to Drive Cloud Computing Services

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. and LONDON, May 26, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- GlassHouse Technologies, a global data center consulting and services firm, today announced that it has entered into a strategic partnership with Cable&Wireless Worldwide (C&W Worldwide), a leading provider of global telecommunication services.  The partnership joins GlassHouse's consulting expertise with C&W Worldwide's range of hosting services, including its new cloud computing offering, Flexible Computing, to provide customers with consultation to help them migrate to cloud based services.

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Flexible Computing is delivered across C&W Worldwide's next-generation network (NGN) and located in its UK-based secure data centers. It addresses the security, compliance, control and availability requirements of enterprises and gives them a means to take full advantage of the cost and performance benefits that cloud computing can offer.

"C&W Worldwide is leading the transformation to a scalable, cost-effective cloud model for our customers. The prime access routes to the Flexible Computing platform are through our next-generation network, not the internet, essentially placing it within the enterprise's own Wide Area Network. This gives them full control, and complete confidence, over all their applications and data," says Ivan Gunatilleke, Chief Operating Officer at C&W Worldwide.  "In addition, organizations need a strategic path to facilitate a low-risk adoption of cloud services starting with a full audit of their applications, addressing their availability needs, and a chance for experimentation and testing of non-critical applications to gain confidence before migrating their mission-critical applications and infrastructure. With the strategic consultation GlassHouse offers we can help our customers make the transition to cloud computing in a way that suits them."

"Teaming with C&W Worldwide allows us to continue helping customers gain efficiency and cost benefits in their IT infrastructure as well as take advantage of a cloud-based model," says Mark Shirman, CEO of GlassHouse.  "C&W Worldwide is a natural partner for GlassHouse since we are both focused on helping customers optimize their assets to support business agility and growth."

GlassHouse and C&W Worldwide are working together to develop comprehensive cloud services for C&W Worldwide customers.  This includes a strategic assessment of the customer's current infrastructure, a roadmap to achieve the desired end state, then the methodical deployment of the required technology and process changes to achieve that goal with no disruption to the customer's day-to-day business.  GlassHouse's consulting team provides the upfront expertise to design and architect custom solutions for C&W Worldwide customers, and partners with the C&W Worldwide team to help them implement those plans.

Gunatilleke continues: "There is no one-size-fits-all cloud solution for enterprises. No-one should begin a migration to a cloud computing environment without considering the individual needs of the organization and a full audit of their applications. As such C&W Worldwide facilitates a low-risk consultative approach, addressing the adoption issues associated with governance, service levels and assurance."     

Vertex, a UK-based leader in BPO, customer management outsourcing and IT services, recently launched a major program of work to migrate to a fully-managed Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solution within C&W Worldwide's secure data centre environments. This included a fully refreshed infrastructure estate, migration of business and corporate applications and the rationalization and consolidation of the solution into a scalable target environment with a much smaller footprint.

Working closely with the customer's internal team, C&W Worldwide and GlassHouse developed a roadmap that provided a solution based around reducing complexity, virtualizing servers, and producing a policy of single standards across the data center environment. The resulting benefits for Vertex include:

• Reduced infrastructure footprint by over 60%
• Scalable and future proofed solution based on standardisation
• Streamlined and cost effective migration and transition process
• Significant reduction on Total Cost Ownership
• Seamless transition into a Fully Managed Hosting Service 

"C&W Worldwide and GlassHouse have enabled Vertex to have access to in-depth skills, knowledge which provided invaluable insight during the migration process, de-risking what is an inherently risky exercise," says David Swallow, Head of Project and Programs at Vertex. "The consultation process has laid the foundations for a cost effective, scalable, and agile solution providing the platform for growth and service excellence."

About GlassHouse

GlassHouse Technologies is a global provider of data center consulting and managed services.  In a rapidly changing data center environment, GlassHouse partners with customers to define a strategy, execute that plan and operate their environment. Our constant focus is on cost efficiency, risk mitigation and service improvement. We provide this through Transom, our unique business model comprised of proprietary software tools, methodologies and domain expertise.

We help deliver on the promise of agility and usage-based spending in the next generation infrastructure paradigm.  This journey is significant and requires an experienced and pragmatic guide to help you achieve your goals.  Our experience is based on thousands of projects in addition to ongoing daily operations of customer environments.

Visit the GlassHouse blog for expert commentary on key data center issues facing today's enterprises and follow us on twitter at @GlassHouse_Tech. 

About Cable&Wireless Worldwide

Cable&Wireless Worldwide (LSE: CW.) is a leading global telecoms company providing a wide range of high-quality managed voice, data, hosting and IP-based services and applications to large multinational companies, governments, carrier customers and resellers across the UK, Asia Pacific, India, Middle East & Africa, Continental Europe and North America. Established in the 1860s, Cable&Wireless Worldwide helps more than 6,000 organisations deliver their goals. The Group's vision is to be the first choice for mission critical communications.

Reaching 20,500km in length, Cable&Wireless Worldwide owns the UK's largest fibre network dedicated to business users of telecoms, and provides ubiquitous nationwide access through a combination of fibre, digital, microwave, radio and leased circuits. The network has presence in over 400 towns and cities in the UK, with 864 unbundled exchanges covering 56% of the population.

Internationally, Cable&Wireless Worldwide's global next-generation network (NGN) stretches to more than 425,000km, including interests in 60 global cable systems, enabling connectivity to more than 150 countries. The Group's IP-based Multi-Service Platform operates at the core of our NGN, offering a single environment on which voice and data applications can be converged to drive business efficiencies. Cable&Wireless Worldwide's network is uniquely designed with inbuilt resilience.

With more than 6,000 colleagues globally, Cable&Wireless Worldwide is committed to delivering exceptional customer service and developing long term partnerships with its customers

To find out more, please visit www.cw.com

SOURCE GlassHouse Technologies