Colt, a premier supplier of Europe-wide information delivery platform technology, is using invaluable support services provided by learnd.
Supporting data acquisition and control systems for remote I/O applications at Colt facilities across Europe, Learnd has proved to be a true support partner for this progressive telecommunications business.
“When Colt started to expand beyond London in the late 1990s we needed some form of building management technology to support our remote sites and deliver alarms to a central server,” says Abhijeet Sharma, DCS Incident Manager at Colt. “Today we have scores of sites and Learnd has been an excellent support partner throughout our evolution.
We have almost day-to-day interaction with Learnd and regular reviews with their team. Richard Ashurst, Project Manager at Learnd, has in particular been instrumental in delivering the level and quality of support we require.”
Today we have scores of sites and Learnd has been an excellent support partner throughout our evolution. We have almost day-to-day interaction with Learnd and regular reviews with their team.
Ahbjeet Sharma, DCS Incident Manager – Colt
Vast network
Colt’s solution combines high performance, end-to-end control of integrated computer and network solutions with an agile and responsive approach across a 22-country, 43,000 km network.
This includes metropolitan area networks in 39 major European cities with direct fibre connections into 18,000 buildings and numerous Colt data centres.
Of course, such a comprehensive platform requires an extensive network of on-going support services to ensure the uninterrupted delivery of a truly integrated experience.
Data Centre Services (DCS) is one of three customer-facing units within Colt. Data Centre services manage all the data centre related operations for the organisation from colocation to complete data centre builds at customer sites with their Colt ftec data centre. Key for DCS is the event management process, which relies partially on Learnd.
The history of the event management function can probably be traced back to 1999 when Learnd (then known as Adam Communication Systems International), began to install onsite monitoring systems. This primarily took the form of Adam 4000 and 5000 series data acquisition and control systems for remote I/O applications. Known more commonly as remote site platform (RSP) units, these systems monitor and collect over 100 possible alarms.
In event of an incident, the RSP units use IP or ISDN, or whatever communications protocol is available, to send information to a central network called NetMan. This acts as a graphical user interface that simplifies the interpretation of event data.
Rapid growth
Today, the Colt network has expanded considerably, and with it the number of RSPs and support services, which are today delivered by Learnd.
There are two main vertical systems. One is the LDN (long distance network) – the fibre pan-european network that forms the backbone of Colt’s business. Here, the WEMS team monitor the Adam equipment at 156 LDN sites across Europe. These mainly comprise small units and fibre repeater stations.
Among the environmental conditions monitored include power cooling and flood systems along with fire protection. The other vertical system is Colt’s critical array of node and data centres. Used primarily for hosting customer traffic equipment, there are 28 of these larger sites dotted around Europe. In total there are tens of thousands of devices under management.
Support on-call
“Learnd provides a 7-7-7 (7am – 7pm, 7 days a week) support service to Colt,” explains Richard Ashurst, Project Manager at Learnd. “If a system goes down or communications are lost, we are contacted to try and identify the problem. Of course, with many of these sites located in the middle of fields, we can do this remotely, typically using ISDN or servers via an internet IP network. We can even take control of local PCs using a secure VPN connection.”
Formed in 1992, Colt has certainly come of age in its 21 year history. Today, this progressive business provides a pan-European delivery platform that enables customers to process, share and store vital business data.
Learnd provides a 7-7-7 (7am – 7pm, 7 days a week) support service to Colt
Richard Ashurst, Project Manager – learnd
Included among Colt customers are financial, legal and media companies along with healthcare and government organisations to list but a few. The company today employs more than 5,000 people worldwide and is listed on both the LSE and NASDAQ.
“Everything we do is driven towards helping our customers make change work so they can run smarter, faster, further,” concludes Mr Sharma. “The on-going support we receive from Learnd is critical to delivering this ideology on a daily basis.
