Managed IT Services

The exceptional connectivity of City Lifeline’s London data centre allows you to choose from the many different methods of data communication available. There is a wide choice of routes, both national and international from the London data centre and several options of carriers who offer “last mile” connections to remote offices and other data centres.

Together with Ocean, City Lifeline offers a fully managed diverse, carrier neutral managed network optimised for modern cloud network requirements. It removes the need to negotiate multiple contracts with different carriers and fibre providers and delivers a single managed network interconnecting any premises or data centres, anywhere in the world. Because the managed network is carrier neutral, it can bring in the best and most appropriate communication options from each carrier for the best solution to each customer need.

The combination and choice offered within the London data centre of a single managed network solution or a variety of communications options from multiple carriers makes the City Lifeline London data centre a strong choice for cloud computing colocation.

The managed network offers:

Flexible Managed Network Deployment

• Fibre, Ethernet and xDSL delivery,
• Underpinned by a directly-owned network core backbone,
• Industry leading, carrier grade infrastructure,
• Designed to deliver IP services that support voice, video and data applications.

Proactive Support

• All services are proactively managed and monitored by our 24/7/365 Support Desk,
• Alerts can provide warnings of unusual network activity, and management statistics to enable rapid problem resolution.

Our clients wanted a data centre in the very centre of London. Redcentric has an ideal location, with easy access, just outside the “Ring of Steel”. Redcentric proved to be an excellent, reliable and trustworthy partner. They are very easy to work with and exceeded all our expectations.

Managed Network Service

• Connectivity is provided as a fully managed service, including managed Cisco hardware for each circuit,
• All hardware is managed, upgraded and supported for the duration of the contract, ensuring that the lowest cost of ownership is achieved,
• Internal management resource requirements are significantly reduced.

City Lifeline’s London data centre offers a choice of data communications methods. For users who prefer to build and manage their own networks, there is an unrivalled choice of carriers and connection options. For those who prefer not to incur the cost and overhead involved, the carrier neutral managed network solution interconnects cloud systems, remote premises and other data centres, anywhere to the highest standards of quality and resilience.

City Lifeline operates a Storage Area Network (SAN) inside the London data centre, in conjunction with Ocean. Partitions on the SAN can be accessed from within the data centre on local fibre or remotely via the various public and private internet communications options available. Up to 1 Petabyte of storage is available per user. Connections to geographically diverse data centres can be provided for additional security and resilience and for disaster recovery. Both cloud storage and data centre storage are presented as fully managed storage systems.

We chose Redcentric for its excellent connectivity. In twelve years in the data centre, we have never lost power. That’s an impressive demonstration of resilience and reliability. Redcentric is one of the best London data centres. We even use it in our own sales process because it’s so good!

Data Centre Connected Storage

Users who have their critical equipment colocated in the City Lifeline London data centre can connect into the SAN and use it as virtual disc storage space up to 1 Petabyte (1 million Gigabytes). Because the SAN is local and connected directly on local fibre, access rates can be very fast. All common access protocols, such as ISCSI (Internet Small Computer System Interface), CFI (Common Internet File System) or Fibre Channel are available.

Cloud Storage

The SAN in the London data centre can be accessed externally through encrypted SSL security. For a user, this creates a highly scalable file repository with redundant power, cooling and disc systems. It can be used as a secondary, high volume store, with local storage for needs which require very fast access. It can also be used for backup and disaster recovery and can be spread across geographically diverse data centres for extra resilience.

The cloud storage and local data centre storage managed options allow you to create virtual storage volumes at will, either in the City Lifeline London data centre or from outside. Storage is safe, secure, fast and conforms to most common transmission protocols. Cloud storage or data centre storage frees you from having to buy, locate, operate and manage storage capacity you may need only rarely.

We provide a secure cloud backup platform in the City Lifeline London data centre. This is much more reliable, much more secure and much more cost effective than tape based systems. Data can be replicated and backed up on several sites for extra resilience and for disaster recovery.

You work with your own data in your own installations, whether on your own premises or colocated in a data centre. You define which data you want to backup using our Cloud Data Backup Service and we automatically replicate it to specialised cloud data storage devices in the London data centre. If you experience any loss of service or any data corruption in your own installations, our Managed Data Backup service allows you to retrieve your data at will and restore it to bring your systems swiftly back to operation.

Exponential-e is one of the UK's fastest-growing technology companies. Redcentric’s location in London and their world-wide connections are ideal for us. We have had zero downtime in our 14-year relationship. We are happy to recommend Redcentric to anyone needing a secure, reliable, connected London data centre.

Data Centre Storage Hardware

Our dedicated cloud backup hardware in the London data centre includes dedicated storage platforms with fully redundant power, cooling and disk configurations. The cloud data backup hardware on your site provides local caching for faster restores, while data integrity is assured through redundant hard discs using RAID 6 or RAID 1+0 technology.

Fully Flexible

• Access to your data 24/7/365 days a year,
• Easily increase your storage space as your requirements grow,
• Cloud storage available up to 1 Petabyte (1 million Gbytes),
• One simple monthly charge for all cloud data backup services,
• Plain storage and agent-based cloud backup options available,
• Conversion of physical to virtual images, directly from backup source.

Cloud Backup Compliance

Our cloud backup service is fully encrypted and is FSA and PCI DSS compliant. It can be configured for either manual or automated cloud backups. It works across many different applications that require specific support, ensuring that the data most important to you is protected.

• Conforms to industry-recognised certifications and audits – including PCI DSS Level 1, ISO 27001, FISMA Moderate and HIPAA,
• SAS 70 Type II in safely processing, storing and securing data,
• All data is military-grade encrypted at source, while in transit and at rest,
• Cross-platform high performance backups protect your system, data, files and applications – in both physical and virtual environments,
• Backups for desktops and laptops, for Windows and Linux Servers, and for business critical applications such as SQL Server, Exchange, SharePoint and MySQL.

Using our cloud data backup service ensures your most critical data is safe, secure and always available to you, no matter what disasters may happen within your own systems.

Information systems and communications in the data centre have to be secure. External and internal threats change constantly. Every operator and administrator of IT or data networking equipment must be constantly vigilant. Carefully designed and tested systems may be open for exploitation only months after being implemented. City Lifeline, through our relationship with ZeroDayLab, provides testing, validation and security improvement recommendations.

Network Access

A remote intruder must first access the network that interconnects everything before he can do harm. VPN’s and VLAN’s must be controlled, protected and monitored. Wireless access must be configured correctly. Firewalls must be set up with alarms, and monitoring and logging for all network access established, so that intrusions can be blocked and traced.

Equipment Security and Resilience

An information or communications system comprises many pieces of complex equipment, all software-based and all continuously changing. Tracking and controlling build standards, patches and software versions is a major task, as is authenticating and administering control standards. Any slip provides vulnerability and an entry point for an intruder.

Ethical Hacking

The only way to really test whether a system’s defences are secure is to try to breach them. This is penetration testing or ethical hacking. In its wider form, it includes vulnerability identification and source code reviews as well as attempts to gain unauthorised access for test purposes. It also covers post-intrusion analysis and forensic investigations.

People

Human factors are often the weakest point of any security system, from the junior employee installing a game from an uncontrolled USB stick to the Chief Executive being “socially engineered” to open an innocuous attachment on an email from a trusted colleague. Training is essential to raise awareness and to modify behaviours at all levels to mitigate against social attacks or the careless creation of vulnerabilities.

Our subscribers expect our service to be instantly and always available. We just cannot afford any downtime and Redcentric has never let us down. We are very happy with the service and support, they've always been there immediately for us. We couldn't ask for more from a London data centre.

Keeping Secure

Together, City Lifeline and ZeroDayLab will work with you to examine, test, audit and strengthen the defences of your IT and communications systems. A 360 degree audit is often the best place to start. If training is needed, we can provide it. If there is an intrusion, we can forensically track down what happened, identify any damage and repair it before the next attack. City Lifeline will help you to secure your data, your information and your communications.

Nothing in the world of computing and data communications stays constant for long. As systems are re-architected, upgraded and refreshed, so equipment configurations change. And so, there are always requirements to move good equipment around, perhaps from server room to colocation in a data centre or from a data centre to another data centre or even within a data centre.

Specialised Server Relocations

City Lifeline offers an IT relocation service for servers and other sensitive and valuable technical equipment. It can operate within the London data centre, nationally or internationally. It can be used to install specialist equipment, intended for London colocation but pre-configured elsewhere, into the data centre. Data centre cabling installations and looms can be dismantled and re-assembled elsewhere, working with City Lifeline or other data centres as necessary. Redundant or obsolete equipment can be disposed of, as an integral part of the IT relocation service.

Safe and Protected

The IT relocation service focuses on safety and protection of your most valuable assets. Dedicated specialist packaging is used throughout. All vehicles used have air suspension for the best possible ride with minimum vibration. All vehicles have tail-lifts for loading and are GPS tracked. Everything necessary is done to ensure the safety and security of the equipment being moved.

All IT relocation staff are experienced, specialist and expert at doing what they do. All are CRB cleared and many have high levels of security clearance for working in sensitive data centre areas where data security is a major consideration.

Dedicated Project Manager

The move will be planned in detail before anything is done. A dedicated project manager will be assigned to your project and his aim will be your total satisfaction with the planning and execution of the move. Every IT relocation project is different, and he will work with you to plan every aspect of it. He will undertake a pre-move audit and prepare Method Statements and Risk Assessments. He will prepare a project plan setting out the major activities and time-scales. Your need for minimum down-time during the IT relocation, and arranging out-of-hours working if needed, will be part of his planning. He will become your partner for the move.

Speedy, Efficient and Trustworthy

The IT relocation service is designed to give you peace of mind in outsourcing a complex, difficult, often unwanted but always essential, task and getting it completed. Your data centre IT relocation project will be fast, efficient, well-executed, on-time and totally trustworthy.

Our subscribers expect our service to be instantly and always available. We just cannot afford any downtime and Redcentric has never let us down. We are very happy with the service and support, they've always been there immediately for us. We couldn't ask for more from a London data centre.

All electronic equipment colocated in a data centre comes to the end of its useful working life. Technology moves on, processors get faster and upgrades are not supported by old equipment. Equipment gets older and starts to become unreliable. Systems work until they are powered down for maintenance, but fail to come back up when power is re-applied. All colocated equipment in a data centre eventually needs disposal.

Environment

Social environmental responsibility requires that all colocated electronic equipment is disposed of according to the WEEE regulations in force throughout Europe. For an installation in a data centre coming to the end of its life, there can be a significant cost in physically removing, wiping and disposing of redundant colocated equipment.

Data Wiping and Erasure

Modern privacy requirements dictate that colocated equipment containing customer data may not be disposed of in any way which allows a third party to gain access to that data. In practice, this means that all hard discs, tapes or other storage mechanisms must be wiped of all readable data before they leave the data centre. Discs can be shredded where required. City Lifeline can provide a data wiping and data destruction service to meet British government CESG standards. Formal certification that all data has been destroyed before the equipment leaves the data centre is available.

Re-sale of Redundant Equipment

Sometimes colocated equipment becomes redundant because of changes in architecture of business strategy. Modern, well maintained equipment is no longer needed. City lifeline can arrange resale of used equipment in good functional and cosmetic condition at an pre-agreed value, including removal from the data centre and any data wiping needed. The service extracts the maximum residual value for you.

Security and Audit Trails

Using the recycling service from City Lifeline ensures that all colocated equipment in the data centre which reaches the end of its useful life can be disposed of safely, certifiably and securely. All data is removed before any storage device leaves the data centre. Each item is individually tracked and its fate can be reported down to item level. The audit trail ensures security, legislative and standards compliance. A single service provides a simple, safe, auditable way to dispose of unwanted colocated equipment.

Redcentric understands data communications and has impressive clients with requirements just like ours. They offer extremely robust ISP and carrier connectivity from a secure data centre right in the heart of central London. As we grow, we know they will offer all the service, connectivity and power we need.