Carrier neutral Central London colocation Tier 3 data centre for server hosting

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60 per cent of UK SMEs hit by IT failures

2 November 2011 – A worrying 60 per cent of respondents surveyed[i] by City Lifeline at this year’s IP Expo have lost access to the company’s IT system following an unexpected incident. The resulting unplanned downtime lasted for more than six hours for 40 per cent of the firms surveyed, leaving employees struggling to access essential business data, run operations or communicate effectively with customers.

Unplanned downtime can have serious financial repercussions. Whether caused by equipment failure, a cyber-attack or something as mundane as road works cutting through a power line, studies show that the loss of access to data and electronic communication systems costs SMEs on average around £7,500 a day in lost business and productivity: ranging from £1,800 for micro-businesses to £14,000 a day for mid-sized enterprises[ii].

In a worst case scenario the lost data can never be recovered. According to the Federation of Small Businesses, 90 per cent of SMEs that lose data following a major incident are forced to shut within two years. Yet research shows that less than half of SMEs bother to back up data every week, and a mere 23 per cent back up daily[iii].

“SMEs are by their nature more vulnerable to the impact of data loss,” said Roger Keenan, managing director at City Lifeline. “Our survey reveals just how many small and medium-sized companies have experienced an IT failure – and for around two thirds of respondents, the resulting downtime lasted for at least half a day. Six hours of downtime effectively amounts to a lost working day. This inevitably means reduced productivity, missed business and unhappy customers and suppliers, something many smaller firms simply cannot afford. It is vital that SMEs make sure important files are saved not only on an external hard drive but in a safe and secure offsite location. Colocation data centres are created to avoid disasters or at least able to cope with them protecting the equipment and servers hosted inside. Most importantly, they are designed to protect a business’ critical IT systems.”

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About City Lifeline

City Lifeline is the leading independent carrier-neutral colocation data centre in central London. Lifeline House is situated in an ideal location, just outside the central London Exclusion zone, in the emerging Silicon Roundabout / Tech City district.

With some of the best connectivity in London, City Lifeline provides a secure, reliable and resilient home for telecoms, networking and server hosting. Its customers have access to the fastest, carrier diverse networks in the UK connecting across the world.

The data centre offers a first-class, flexible and personal service coupled with the security, reliability and engineering teams to match.

For further information about City Lifeline visit: www.city-lifeline.co.uk

City Lifeline boosts disaster recovery and support for remote workers at ihotdesk

City Lifeline, the London-based independent carrier-neutral colocation data centre, has today announced it will provide colocation services for award winning IT support company, ihotdesk.

In a move to expand its existing data centre capacity, ihotdesk selected City Lifeline's facilities to enhance its disaster recovery capability and support for its growing number of clients. Located in central London, City Lifeline’s data centre is close to ihotdesk’s office and customers, who will regularly access and use the facility to maintain equipment.

Preet Chahal, CEO at ihotdesk says: "We did look at data centres in the Docklands but they are too far away from our office and this would be inconvenient for our staff and customers. Our team of engineers will need to visit the site daily, as do our clients who will soon be operating their own equipment from there, so quick and easy access is vital."

“City Lifeline’s facilities and operations are excellent, security is tight and the facility is exactly what we required. Image is vital to us, so we needed a professional colocation data centre that complemented our high quality IT support and services that we in turn offer our clients. In short, we wouldn’t offer our clients a data centre that we didn’t use ourselves.”

Roger Keenan, managing director at City Lifeline says: “We are pleased to be working with ihotdesk and providing them with a data centre operation that suits them and their customers. We are continuing to work with many businesses like ihotdesk that are expanding and recognising the need for a proficient colocation data centre to help support their future growth plans."

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About City Lifeline

City Lifeline is the leading independent carrier-neutral colocation data centre in central London. With some of the best connectivity in London, City Lifeline provides a secure, reliable and resilient home for telecoms, computer and server hosting. Lifeline House is situated in an ideal central London location with a wide choice of carriers connecting across the world. The data centre offers a first-class, flexible and personal service with the security, equipment, plant, services and engineers to match.

For further information about City Lifeline visit: www.city-lifeline.co.uk

About ihotdesk

ihotdesk is an award winning IT support company based in central London which provides IT support, outsourcing and communication services to businesses situated in London and throughout the United Kingdom.
ihotdesk has been establised for over 11 years and offers a comprehensive range of services that cater for the needs of small, medium and large sized companies.

For further information about ihotdesk visit: www.ihotdesk.com