Terpel case study - BT Global Services

Case study - Terpel.
Data centre fuels growth of gas
station business.
It’s early December 2014 and Carlos Zambrano has a right to feel uneasy. His company, the Colombian fuel
distributor, Terpel, is about to transfer its computing estate to a new data centre. One false move and his
business might suffer; not to mention his career.
But he’s dealing with BT, which means it takes just four hours to migrate a vital SAP database and then
everything’s back to normal. And service station users don’t notice a thing. In future all they’ll experience is
even more resilient IT systems in the only Tier 4 data centre in Colombia … owned by BT.
BT doesn’t only supply data centres. It supplies availability, sustainability
and scalability.
Carlos Alberto Zambrano Smith
Director of Technology Resources and Information Security
Terpel
Case Study - Terpel.
Working with BT is a world away from what we
were used to. The thinking is the same as you’d
find in leading European and American markets.
There’s also knowledge transfer, which helps my
people raise their own capabilities.
BT Advise Compute reduces risk for
Colombian gas station operator as it
shifts up to Tier 4 data centre.
Carlos Alberto Zambrano Smith
Director of Technology Resources
and Information Security
Terpel
Volatile foundations for an
ambitious business.
That was precisely where BT had put its Naos purposebuilt cloud and data centre, serving customers across Latin
America. No coincidence.
Dealing in flammable products like airline fuel and petrol, it’s
little wonder Terpel, one of the top oil and gas distribution
companies in Colombia, knows all about risk.
Naos was the first data centre facility in Colombia to achieve
Tier 4 certification and is one of the most efficient in Latin
America, with features like hybrid cooling and modular power
systems. It’s connected via a superfast fibre ring to the BT
Nimbus facility, about 40km away in the Bogotá Fontibón
Free Zone. Full redundancy is assured.
This extends to its data centres too. The business was
increasingly reliant on information housed in less than
ideal locations. The company’s primary data centre was in a
residential area of Bogotá, exposed to threats like terrorism
and earthquakes. Its back up facility was not the supplier’s
core business and was ringed by communications masts and
high-voltage power lines.
Carlos Alberto Zambrano Smith, Director of Technology
Resources and Information Security at Terpel, says: “We’d
recently upgraded our data centres for high availability. But
the location problems were an ever-present danger. We could
be without IT services for hours or even days, leading to a
critical loss for the business.”
Such a prospect was unthinkable for a company that had
publicly set out to be number one for service in its market.
Efficient Tier 4 data centre with
full redundancy.
Terpel evaluated international data centre best practice
standards. “For peace of mind, we needed a Tier 4 facility,”
Zambrano says, “because the service had to be present on
a 24-hour basis.” That helped narrow the search from 26
potential providers to a shortlist of three. Terpel chose BT
after a risk analysis of the Bogotá region, which showed the
Tocancipá Free Zone in the Cundinamarca department as the
most secure.
Data connections between the previous backup facility and the
primary data centre, and the company’s operations in other
Latin American markets, had been very costly. “With the new
data centre there are no hidden costs,” Zambrano confirms.
Ultra-fast move with zero
business interruption.
Finding the right location was just one step, however. Terpel still
had to move its equipment to the new facility. Not a trivial affair.
Terpel has two mainframes and a significant IBM X6 server farm.
Zambrano says: “We don’t have as much equipment as a bank,
but we handle just as many transactions.”
It was critical to carry out the transition without business
interruption. “BT was the only supplier that bought into
our 27-day migration methodology,” Zambrano recalls. In
the event, Terpel was able to transfer its high-availability
equipment inside 22 hours and its operational kit within four,
both with zero downtime. The migration began at 10 p.m. on a
Friday in December and was completed by 5 p.m. the next day.
Case Study - Terpel.
We get lots of proactive information from
BT about the behaviour of the machines.
That means my team only has to get
involved occasionally.
Carlos Alberto Zambrano Smith
Director of Technology Resources
and Information Security
Terpel
This coincided with a weekend when Colombians traditionally
take to the roads, stopping at service stations along the way.
But a BT Advise Compute professional services team had
smoothed the way by preparing the data centre space to
receive all Terpel equipment. Everything was preconfigured.
LAN connections were already in place and tested.
During the migration the Terpel SAP database couldn’t be
accessed for four hours but, since the migration took place at
night, the impact was negligible. “Previous moves had seen
up to 120 hours of downtime,” says Zambrano.
Reliable service and support underpins
further expansion.
With everything in place, what is noticeable since the move
is … nothing. “Not a thing,” Zambrano confirms, “because
there’s such reassurance in the reliability of the service.
We get lots of proactive information from BT about the
behaviour of the machines. That means my team only has to
get involved occasionally.”
Freed up from having to handle data centre affairs, the IT
function is now able to focus on projects more important for
the business. That helps improve innovation in the company.
Performance has also shot up, reducing costs and downtime.
With operations already in Panama, Ecuador, Chile, Mexico
and the Dominican Republic, as well as Colombia, as it further
expands across Latin America Terpel is looking forward to cooperating with BT.
“Working with BT is a world away from what we were used to,”
Zambrano sums up. “The thinking is the same as you’d find in
leading European and American markets. There’s also knowledge
transfer, which helps my people raise their own capabilities.”
Core services.
• BT Advise Compute professional services
• BT Compute Telehousing
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September 2015