Case Study

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an end-to-end and international service from its base in the UK. ... and long-term needs, using software tools to scope
Case Study

Case Study The challenge

Information

Headquartered in Leeds, Torque prides itself on its innovative

Torque is an independent supply chain logistics operator offering

approach to the handling and transport of goods. The company

an end-to-end and international service from its base in the UK.

provides a full range of services, including international freight, transport and distribution, warehousing and logistics and courier services. Its technology platforms enable it to track goods along every stage of the supply chain, from the supplier’s dispatch depot

Challenges

all the way to the client’s door – no matter how far apart they may

• Disparate systems

be nor how many stages there are in between.

• Network latency issues

The system infrastructure supporting this technology was starting to feel the strain of the organisation’s success. As Torque grew it found its systems were reaching their physical limit and could not provide support for newer operating systems. Warren Voss, IT

• Capacity problems • Insufficient scalability to keep pace with demand • Slow refresh rates • Insufficient capacity to mitigate risk

Manager at Torque, says, “Our business was growing rapidly year on year and needed scalability.” Network latency and storage capacity were becoming issues and so too was environmental cost management. What’s more, Torque wanted to ensure its disaster recovery and business continuity plans were as comprehensive as possible.

Results • Comprehensive single-source solution • Scalable and modular • Releases IT time and resources and improves overall productivity • Significant cost savings on maintenance, support and backup • Reduced environmental overhead

“Our business was growing rapidly year on year and needed scalability.” Network latency and storage capacity were becoming issues and so too was environmental cost management. What’s more, Torque wanted to ensure its disaster recovery and business continuity plans were as comprehensive as possible.

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Case Study The solution ICC worked closely with the company to help assess its immediate

Included in the transition was the removal of Torque’s old kit as

and long-term needs, using software tools to scope the size of

a trade-in against the system, as part of ICC’s ITAD (IT asset

system needed. A hyperconverged data center solution was

disposal) service. We also securely wiped the data from the drives

agreed to be the best response not only to Torque’s problems of

to allow resale, thereby creating nearly zero landfill. This service is

physical constraint but to its processing, networking and storage

not something widely available from other suppliers.

capacity requirements now and in future.

As a result Torque’s ‘green footprint’ was reduced in two ways:

Torque’s systems were migrated from its legacy IT stack to a

one, its redundant equipment was disposed of considerately; and

scalable and modular hyperconverged platform from SimpliVity.

two, the system that replaced it was much more environmentally

This solution comprehensively includes storage, processing power,

friendly.

hypervisor, real-time deduplication, compression and optimization as well as powerful data management, data protection and disaster recovery capabilities. It’s a much easier platform to manage and means the company makes considerable saving on software licenses. It saves on power too: in this area alone the savings are reckoned to be £41,000 over five years. Veeam restores had been taking eight hours. A restore of a 1TB virtual machine takes around 60 to 80 seconds. This was a big selling point for Torque, as the company had been hit a number of times with ransomware. The physical space saved with the new platform was remarkable:

Warren Voss says, “The new system has only been up for a few weeks but it’s great. We’ve had no alerts, no alarms, and it’s very quick. We now have the scalability we need too: this upgrade means we have the infrastructure to keep growing and as a result we have an even faster recovery process should we need it. Our average disaster recovery cycle is only two or three seconds, with fast replication.” With new systems in place and with support from ICC, Torque is better able to maintain and even improve its impressive customer service record and can pursue ambitious growth plans with confidence.

the footprint for Torque was reduced from two rooms housing four 42U racks to just one 6U rack. The speed of the transition was also impressive: the migration was handled in under a month.

It saves on power too: in this area alone the savings are reckoned to be £41,000 over five years. As a result Torque’s ‘green footprint’ was reduced in two ways: one, its redundant equipment was disposed of considerately; and two, the system that replaced it was much more environmentally friendly.

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Case Study About ICC

ICC Group Northern Office

ICC are a global IT solutions company offering a range of

Connection House

technology solutions, hardware and services to the SME,

Sandbeck Lane

Enterprise & Public sector markets.

Wetherby

We are one of the few remaining nationwide independent IT support companies in the UK. Unencumbered by shareholders or large company structures, we are uniquely able to provide customised solutions and customer care that our larger competitors could only dream of. • New and refurbished servers and hardware, configured to order and delivered/installed on-site • Virtualisation, hyperconvergence and data storage

West Yorkshire LS22 7TW

ICC Group Midlands Office Unit 9 Willow Industrial Park Willow Road Castle Donington Derbyshire DE74 2NP

solution specialists • Full service support and maintenance company, with break/ fix support, managed services contracts and professional services capabilities • ITAD and secure data destruction services

Sales and Information Hotline: 0333 220 0413 Mon-Fri 0900-1730 GMT UK Support Desk: 0845 302 1922 24h 365 days (never closes)

• ISO9001:2008, ISO20001:2011 and ISO27001:2013 accredited

we’ve got IT 3