Logicalis Brings IBM Business Analytics to the Cloud

SLOUGH, England, May 4, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- International solutions provider, Logicalis, today announced the launch of its IBM Power 795 cloud platform, featuring a range of business analytics hosted services based on IBM Cognos.  The launch will offer customers access to powerful business intelligence and business analytics solutions without the need to acquire, deploy and operate their own hardware infrastructure.  Logicalis also announced its IBM Infrastructure-as-a-Service offering, enabling customers to leverage services such as on-demand disaster recovery, application test and development, or full application hosting.

Tom Kelly, managing director of Logicalis UK, commented; "Cloud and business analytics are two of the key disruptive innovations of our time.  Combining our expertise in cloud, deep experience with IBM Power 795, and the world-class business analytics skills of our recent acquisition, Inca Software, we can help customers leverage the transformational insight of business analytics with the flexibility and cost efficiency of cloud.

"We can offer the full suite of IBM intelligence and analytics software, or a 'slice of Power technology' for those wishing to move off legacy or less capable mid-range or high-end platforms.  Our partnership with IBM now extends across servers and storage platforms, software, cloud and analytics, and I believe that as IBM look to build a Smarter Planet, Logicalis has become their go-to Smarter Partner."

The new services will be based out of Logicalis UK's Tier 3+ high density data centre (HDDC). The IBM Power 795 will leverage Logicalis' flexible HDDC design and the any-rack water cooling facilities, and will utilise the existing cloud storage solution from NetApp and CA Technologies' management platforms.  In addition to the hosted analytics services, Logicalis' range of disaster recovery and application test and development services will support customers migrating from IBM System i platforms by offering a hosted AIX and test and development environment.

Simon Daykin, CTO of Logicalis UK added, "Our recognised innovation in Intel cloud is now complemented by this major IBM investment, with both systems able to work together to offer a total cloud computing environment to our customers.  IBM's Power 795 is one of the fastest and most capable platforms on the planet, and we are now able to offer customers and their applications a slice of processing capacity to run major production workloads.  By layering business analytics as our first hosted service, this immediately opens up deep business insights to even the smallest of organisations who may have felt that analytics was out of their reach.  This is the disruptive power of cloud – offering businesses and the public sector new and compelling services that they could not technically build or commercially afford in the do-it-all-yourself consumption models."

Business analytics turns the rapid growth in creation and collection of raw data into true business information, intelligence and value, enabling private and public sector organisations to dramatically improve how they see themselves, their customers, or their citizens. Business Analytics and Cloud form two of the four key growth strategy pillars of IBM, which also include Smarter Planet and Growth Markets.

Ian Stone, Software Sales Director at Inca Software, Logicalis' business analytics division commented, "The availability of cloud hosted IBM Cognos business intelligence and analytics solutions heralds a new era in helping organisations make smarter planning and business decisions.  Prior to the Logicalis acquisition, Inca recognised that while the CFO and COO saw the immense business value in adopting analytics, the complexity and cost of provisioning new hardware was, in many cases, a barrier to adoption.  At a time when commercial organisations are looking for 20/20 vision of their business, and politicians and civil servants need to make massive organisational transformation; having access to cloud hosted analytics will help them become smarter organisations faster."

Logicalis' initial services will be a fully hosted IBM Cognos environment, and the company intends to extend this into 'Analytics-as-a-Service' by the end of 2011.

About Logicalis

Logicalis is an international provider of integrated information and communications technology (ICT) solutions and services founded on a superior breadth of knowledge and expertise in communications & collaboration; data centre; and professional and managed services.

Logicalis Group employs over 2,000 people worldwide, including highly trained service specialists who design, specify, deploy and manage complex ICT infrastructures to meet the needs of over 5,000 corporate and public sector customers.  To achieve this, Logicalis maintains strong partnerships with technology leaders such as Cisco, HP, IBM and Microsoft.

The Logicalis Group is a division of Datatec Limited, listed on the Johannesburg and London AIM Stock Exchanges, with revenues in excess of $4 billion.

For more information, visit www.uk.logicalis.com.

For further information please contact:
Andrew Parker/Jennifer Manning/Charlotte Sandy
Cohesive Communications
T: +44 (0) 1291 626200
E: [email protected]  

SOURCE Logicalis UK