navigation Basic navigation Active 24 Bring up contents and menu Press and hold your finger on the sheet Move to another sheet Swipe right / left Movement within the sheet Swipe up / down Moving the Data Centre day-by-day Server Housing in the DC TOWER with added value and savings for the ACTIVE 24 Company. “We chose Server Housing from CRA mainly because it offers the highest technological standards under acceptable terms. The DC TOWER Data Centre has sufficient free capacities for growth and it is regularly invested into. It also met the conditions of the presence of the Czech peering exchange point NIX.CZ and the option of interconnection with other internet providers. The high level of assurance of operation of the data centre confirms how right our choice was even two years after moving.“ Tomáš Hála, IT SECURITY OPERATIONS MANAGER, ACTIVE 24 We place strict requirements on ourselves and our partners The ACTIVE 24 Company is one of the most important providers of services in the field of domain registration, web hosting and server solutions in the Czech Republic. ACTIVE 24 has nearly twenty years of experience in operating its technologies and systems in commercial data centres. The ACTIVE 24 Company’s credo from the very beginning was a high level of professionalism, technological advancement, emphasis on reliability and security, and the will to realise innovative solutions. It is also aware that even the best technologies only have value if people actually use them. The ACTIVE 24 Company’s objective incudes maximum openness towards customers, their wishes and requirements and the company expects a similar approach from it suppliers and partners. ACTIVE 24 initially operated technologies and applications in its own established data centre, part of which the company offered to clients, similarly to the service České Radiokomunikace provides now. ACTIVE 24 soon came to the conclusion that if it wanted to provide truly high-quality domain registration, webhosting and server solutions, it would be better to entrust the field of data centres into the hands of specialised subjects and concentrate on its own business activities and development. „Establishment and operation of two high-quality data centres, which we consider a standard for high operating reliability, using our own resources, simply made no economic or business sense. We therefore defined the qualitative parameters, which we strictly require from data centre operators and we lease these services. Thanks to precise definition of the required quality of services, we are capable of uncovering any potential deviations from the required status and responding to them flexibly. Our emphasis on a truly strong partnership with the data centre provider, which is apparent when handling ordinary operating requirements with data centre employees or during more complicated business negotiations, is also important.” Tomáš Hála, IT SECURITY OPERATIONS MANAGER, ACTIVE 24 Replacement of the data centre = increased quality and effectiveness “Because we are well aware of how problematic it is to leave your own data centre, particularly due to the enormous volume of investments and in spite of the fact that it no longer meets qualitative requirements, we appreciate the opportunity to replace the data centre provider whose services we lease. In spite of the fact that such a transition is very risky and labour-intensive, we have done so three times in our history. Problems always began when we started to experience a fall in quality and the speed of handling operating requirements, we then saw that the data centre started to stagnate technologically, with no investments being made into its development, and the last drop, which started the whole process of moving to another centre, was always the worsening quality of the provided services, fatal outages and the data centre operator’s inability to self-reflect. At the time when the outages directly impacted the quality of services we provide to our customers, we already had a preferred new datacentre operator, due to previous indications of the worsening conditions, and were prepared to make changes. Moving technologies under full operation is a very demanding project posing a range of risks. This is why ACTIVE 24 devoted the necessary attention to detail and time to selecting a new provider. Changing data centre service provider is possible, but is certainly not preferred, which is why we also approached the matter so that the new partnership would function at least as long as our partnership with the previous provider. We chose this company because it offered the highest technological standards under acceptable terms, its data centre has sufficient free capacities for growth and its interest in us was considerably higher than the competition’s. DC TOWER enabled direct connection not only to the Czech peering exchange point NIX.CZ, but also offered us the opportunity to connect to other internet providers. The contractual terms and guarantee of adherence to the qualitative parameters of operation were also best from České Radiokomunikace.” Another reason was also that CRA had over 50 years of experience with operating technologies of critical importance (television broadcasting) and outage-free operation of the data centre building since 1992.“ Painful training makes for easy performance, or preparation must not be underestimated “The project for selection of a new data centre provider, planned migration and gradual movement and putting into operation, without interruption of services for customers, took nearly a year. Selection of the new provider, specification of the terms for provision of services, project design of our part of the data centre and planning the move took three quarters of this period. ACTIVE 24 and České Radiokomunikace worked closely together from the very start, when technical standards for racks were defined. This particularly concerned positioning of technologies, laying of cabling, including colour differentiation, correct distribution of the load on individual power supply branches, separation of the hot and cold zones, optimisation of air-flow, etc. ACTIVE 24 prepared detailed scenarios for migration, which were accurate to the minute. Customers were very openly informed of the preparations for and progress of moving on a special website, which was operated from the data centre of an affiliate company in order to assure availability at all times during the move. Customers were also provided with information about planned downtime, which could not last for longer than two hours, even in the most complicated cases. For more than 95% of customers the move meant several seconds of downtime, i.e. this basically had no impact on the provided services. České Radiokomunikace handed over the prepared racks, including cabling to measure precisely according to the diagrams for equipping individual racks, just under three months after mutual approval of the assignment. The migration scenario was verified numerous times and so actual transfer of services could be commenced in the middle of June. Operation was moved fully to the new data centre on 5th September 2014, in just under three months.” How the Active 24 Company assesses a year in our data centres ACTIVE 24: “A year is not a very long time in the field of data centre services. But it is enough to observe the key characteristics of the partnership and describe them. We have not registered any outage, not in the cooling system, or the power supply. České Radiokomunikace very patiently listens to our requirements and meets them. An excellent example is that their people repeatedly let us view the technological non-IT facilities at DC TOWER. And not only us, but also our customers and colleagues from affiliates and the parent company. One of the highest points of our partnership was our direct attendance of the full test of the diesel engines, which České Radiokomunikace employees perform regularly once every fourteen days. We increase the effectiveness of the data centre together, we adhere to strict principles for sealing vacant positions in racks, České Radiokomunikace separated the hot and cold zones of all customers in our data room, it invests into modernisation of the cooling system and power supply. The result is constant improvement of operating conditions, which has not meant any increase in costs for us, but actually an 11 % reduction in operating costs! Improvements are also apparent in the details, such as additional temperature sensors, warning signals notifying of an open door into the cold aisle, or new fireproof doors in the data room, which also comply with security class 3 according to the National Security Authority. České Radiokomunikace also continues to expand the usable areas, gradually implement biometrics for further reinforcement of security and works on displaying important service parameters (temperature, humidity, power supply, consumption) on the customer portal. It seems that this excellent symbiosis is worth it and we are growing together, we are currently discussing expansion of our technologies by two new racks with České Radiokomunikace, our affiliates and parent company are considering gradually moving operation of our hosting group services to DC TOWER and we would be happy if they did so. We rate our partnership to date and the above-standard relations with people from České Radiokomunikace very positively.” Tomáš Hála, IT SECURITY OPERATIONS MANAGER, ACTIVE 24, s. r. o. Services thanks to which we acquired the Active 24 Company DC TOWER Data Centre A secure place for your servers, data and technologies No outages since 1992 Enables servicing during operation Support 24 hours a day Operated by certified personnel