BT has unveiled two new products in Ireland for organisations that want the benefits of cloud computing when they plan their next-generation ICT services.
The first product, Virtual Data Centre (VDC), is a scalable, self-service virtual data centre that offers significant savings over standard hosted infrastructure, while the second, Next Generation Contact Centre (NGCC), is an on-demand solution that delivers multi-channel contact centre features without the capital investment.
Customers can leverage BT’s innovation to access best-of-breed technologies while reducing upgrade costs and maintenance requirements. They can become more agile with BT cloud services that automate and simplify complex infrastructure while facilitating greater flexibility to meet changing business needs.
“BT’s cloud services offer significant total cost of ownership savings over traditional approaches for example; savings of up to 40pc can be recognised with VDC, while mitigating the risks associated with investing in new technologies,” explained Peter Evans, strategy director, BT Ireland.
On-demand computing
VDC provides a dynamic and virtualised infrastructure platform that enables organisations to consume their IT and networking infrastructure as a service and provides a foundation for future cloud services. Comprised of virtual components on a pre-provisioned infrastructure, it encompasses virtual servers, storage, security and networking capabilities.
Hosted in a BT data centre, accessed through an online portal, and supported by a single service desk, the infrastructure can be changed in real-time, allowing customers to scale their computing, network and storage requirements according to the business need.
AMEY was the customer to pilot the product and successfully used it to implement a disaster recovery (DR) solution. In the event of disaster it can restore and run all its applications within hours.
“There is no operational overhead and we only pay for full DR if it is has to be used,” said Delia Campbell, AMEY.
“The flexibility and total cost of ownership of VDC is very compelling.”
Out-of-the-box
NGCC is an “out-of-the-box” solution that bundles multi-channel contact centre features in a pre-packaged product, hosted by BT. It can be seamlessly integrated into any existing call centre infrastructure and is flexible enough to grow with the business.
Embedded in BT’s global network, organisations with worldwide offices can use it to deploy contact centre services to any location, with consistent features and rapid roll out to agents. Easily scaled, it can be stepped up and down, with new agents added to meet seasonal demands.
Hosted in a BT data centre, the contact centre platform has enhanced geographic resilience and provides 99.99pc availability. Supervisors and administrators can manage operations centrally from any internet connection. BT offers a flexible pricing model around NGCC to fit every type of contact centre operation. Customers only pay for what they need on a per minute basis.
“Businesses today face the dual challenge of ensuring excellent customer service while keeping capital expenditure costs under control,” Evans explained. “This is precisely what NGCC was designed to address.”
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