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posted on 04 June 2008 09:34

Chesterfield, 4th June 2008, Leading vendor-independent storage integrator, B2net, today announced that it has completed the first phase of a comprehensive programme of server virtualisation, data centre centralisation and back-up and recovery at the Edinburgh Head Office of one of Scotland’s most successful businesses, Scottish Midland Cooperative Society (SCOTMID).

The Co-operative employs over 4,200 staff and has 260 food stores and toiletry retail outlets, a thriving commercial and residential property portfolio, and one of the largest Funeral Services in Scotland.  The Society also operates a beauty and toiletry wholesale business in Wakefield.

Scott Kerr, Head of IT at SCOTMID comments, “After a thorough selection process we decided that B2net was the only choice for us as they have the best technical capabilities on the market. We needed extra storage to support a huge new database as our existing data centre had reached maximum capacity. Also as our head office is based close to Edinburgh Airport we also wanted to ensure that our disaster recovery strategy was as robust as possible”.

B2net started designing the programme in January 2007, introducing VMware to provide a high level of resilience, reducing the number of physical servers at the head office from 25 to 5. B2net centralised all data with an IBM N-series filer, with optimum clustering and super resilience.  This will eventually replicate with the data centre at Livingston.

“The B2net team have been with us every step of the way, providing all the help and support we need to achieve a quick and effective installation,” adds Kerr. “We now have the ability to implement a robust disaster recovery system  and the capability to provide multiple backups and distributed storage that will support our future growth. We now also have the ability to host the large volumes of data a retailer needs in their MIS systems to drive sales and improve customer service. 

Mark Butcher, B2net’s Divisional Sales Manager comments: “We are delighted that   the new infrastructure project has gone so well at SCOTMID, Phase 1 of the implementation was completed on time and we are currently supporting Scotmid during the data migration process. We are looking forward to working with Scotmid to provide a disaster recovery programme for a second site, in December 2008.”

B2net implemented and installed 5 x IBM X3850 servers with VMware; IBM n5300 clustered filer with 21TB storage (raw); SnapMirror, SnapRestore, SnapManager for SQL, iSCSI, Snapdrive for Windows; an IBM TS3310 Tape Library (including six LTO 3 drives); and Tivoli Storage Manager. B2net is providing Scotmid with full 24x7 IT Service Support with its Umbrella Support Service – a complete support solution that guarantees end-to-end service support and a single point of ownership for customers’ infrastructure problems.

Following B2net’s acquisition of Scottish-based Productivity Computer Solutions (PCS) last year, the company has recently opened an office at the Scottish Enterprise Technology Park, East Kilbride, Glasgow, which is perfectly placed to meet the continuing storage and IT infrastructure requirements of Scottish businesses.

About Scotmid

Scotmid Co-op was formed in 1981 following the merger of St Cuthbert's and Dalziel Societies. However, our roots go further back than that as St Cuthbert's was originally formed in 1859 and Dalziel in 1863.

Today the Society has over 250 retail outlets in the shape of our community based food stores and our toiletry chain Semi Chem. And as one of the major funeral directors in the country, we're always there in times of need bringing real peace of mind.

Completing the Scotmid picture is MST our wholesale supplier of health and beauty goods and our Property Department, which has an extensive portfolio of both commercial and residential properties throughout Scotland.

About B2net

B2net is a vendor independent integrator of storage infrastructure solutions with extensive experience in designing, deploying and managing enterprise server, storage & virtualisation solutions. The B2net Group now has reached a turnover in excess of £30 million and employs over 90 people in the UK. Few other integrators have B2net’s in-depth understanding of systems and data management. Founded in 2000, B2net acts as a trusted advisor to many leading corporate and public sector organisations, working with them on infrastructure maturity models to obtain best value from their IT investment. For more information on B2net and its solutions and partners, please visit www.b2net.co.uk.

^{[Formatted by Paul Warren.]}