Block extends its services for healthcare customers

Block, the specialist IT consultancy and services company, has announced the launch of a suite of hosted service options on its networking, workspace and data centre solutions, developed specifically for the UK healthcare market.

Data Centre as a Service (DCaaS) is the first available module of Block’s newly developed services offering for healthcare customers. Representing a strategic shift for the company, Block will be quickly rolling out a full range of services over 2014. These are designed to give NHS Trusts the tools with which to harness a hybrid IT model – scaling their on and off-premise infrastructure to suit their physical and clinical requirements.

Block’s off-premise offering means that healthcare customers can now tackle pressing issues such as limited space, resilience, power, security and environmental concerns by having assets hosted and managed by Block offsite.

The co-location and hosted platform lets an NHS Trust create its ideal technology infrastructure by making space to move applications and data, partition that which is deemed mission critical, and organise and prioritise its structural management. Block’s services can be accessed via direct circuit, N3, Internet or any combination of the three, providing an added level of flexibility and security.

Block CEO Jon Pickering commented: “Block’s move to delivering services to our clients has been carefully timed and driven by what this sector is asking for. We’re not changing what we offer; we’re changing how it can be consumed. Having said that, we’re not now prescriptively pushing services through the cloud as the only option to customers. We’re providing a choice.”

Block has specifically developed its ‘as a Service’ offerings to conform to all expected UK Healthcare governance and standards. Block operates a 24/7 support and ‘remote hands’ service, backed and driven by SLAs following ISO standards and ITIL frameworks. The new data centre opens with a suite of rack and power services, as well as offering a range of Internet and communications capabilities. The storage agnostic data centre enables a fast, secure and painless transfer of hosted data and applications via Block’s Cisco Powered infrastructure.

The platform will also be made available to and specifically tailored for the finance and retail sectors, where large amounts of data, lack of physical space and procedural and regulatory security are also business concerns.

Pickering continues: “Working closely with our partners and customers, we’ve recognised the need to create tailored services that help our customers overcome specific challenges and problems in their industries. Over the coming months we’ll be releasing a range of new products and services that wholly identify with what our customers require. It is this value-rich, services-led approach that we believe will make the most difference.”

“DCaaS, for example, has been designed to give customers ‘breathing space’, when and where needed. Moving selective applications and data to Block’s secure data centres and accessing them when required creates a hybrid location data model, taking all those pressures away. Making a hybrid infrastructure like this has immediate benefits. Strategically, organisations can choose which critical applications and sensitive datasets they keep on-premise, and which they divest off-site. Financially, using DCaaS, a customer only pays for what they use, but can expand that with great flexibility, which gives them tighter control without impacting capital investment.”