MRP visited Kapua, released an RFP, and selected Datacom as preferred partner for colocation services.
Mighty River Power is one of New Zealand’s largest electricity companies, generating about 15 - 17 percent of New Zealand’s electricity. The organisation’s core business is based on low fuel-cost, renewable electricity generation, and it is one of the world’s largest geothermal power station owners. Mighty River Power complements its generation by sales to one in five New Zealand homes and businesses. It sells electricity through multiple channels and consumer brands, including Mercury Energy, GLO-BUG, Bosco Connect and Tiny Mighty Power. Mighty River Power operates a centralised IT department across all its divisions.
The Challenge
Mighty River Power was relocating its Hamilton office to a new building, which meant moving the server room. After carefully considering its options, the organisation decided that outsourcing the service would be the best overall model for the business. Outsourcing would provide cost savings, remove the maintenance of a dedicated server room, and it also meant the organisation could tap into a higher-grade facility.
The Solution
Following a due diligence process, Mighty River Power selected Datacom as its preferred partner.
The organisation visited Datacom’s Hamilton-based data centre, Kapua, the most resilient data centre in New Zealand. Mighty River Power found that Kapua was a higher-grade facility than the organisation could build itself, and is a cloud ready environment which suited the organisation’s needs. Mighty River Power currently own the infrastructure and rent rack cabinets. On the day of migration, Datacom ensured the power was up and running and the cabling was all in place, offering a seamless experience in a twelve-hour turnaround phase which minimised disruption to the business.
Today, Mighty River Power is achieving a range of benefits through the outsourced model, including scalability and lower total cost of ownership.
The Technologies
Datacom delivered colocation services, which included the use of power, cables, network connections, the use of rack cabinets and offsite Tape backup services.
The Partnership
Mighty River Power and Datacom worked closely together throughout the project. Mighty River Power’s internal project team managed the end-to-end process of migrating its servers, while Datacom’s own data centre team built and executed a migration plan to shift to the Kapua Data Centre facility.
Subsequently, this great partnership has resulted in Mighty River Power winning the PMINZ Public Sector Project of the Year 2013 award.
"The PMINZ judges were particularly impressed with the solid planning that was put in place to ensure successful delivery of the 'Data Centre 2 Move' project the project demonstrated high standards of project management capability and professionalism. The project was particularly notable for:
- Emphasis on project quality
- The rigorous approach taken to health and safety
- Demonstrating minimal disruption to staff and ICT services
- Successfully combining and coordinating both internal and external resources
“The whole way through the project – from the Kapua tour to the RFP process, to the shift into Kapua, to the bill arriving, expectations were clearly met. The project was without surprise or issue. This firmly cemented that selecting Datacom was the right decision.”
Brendan McAnnalley - ICT Operations Manager, Mighty River Power