Atos: Managing a data center requires very specific expertise

Aalst, Antwerp, Diegem, and now also Huizingen, 14 April 2020 – Atos has partnered up with data center operator LCL to manage Atos's Belgian data center in Huizingen. LCL is investing a total of €5.5 million in the acquisition and modernization of the data center infrastructure in Huizingen. Approximately two full-time equivalents will be required for the work in Huizingen, which will be divided among all the roles in LCL’s team. LCL is recruiting two new employees to strengthen its team.

"The data center is a key component of our cloud strategy and hybrid cloud services,” said Patrick Hendrickx, Director of Infrastructure and Data Management at Atos Belux. “Atos focuses on IT services and secure digital platforms. Constructing and managing a data center is a specialization in itself and requires very specific expertise. That is why we decided to look for a professional co-location partner to manage our data center in Huizingen and to ensure its further evolution, in order to meet the highest standards. Atos will still have final responsibility for all services provided to its customers.”
 
“We always act as a partner when we collaborate with customers,” said Laurens van Reijen, LCL's CEO. “We pass on leads to them. If they are looking for specific services, we tell them about relevant suppliers, and we work on co-creation. In short, we think along with the customer. Our customers are integrated into our ecosystem, which consists of telecom carriers, service providers and system integrators, and government organizations as well as companies. It gives us great pleasure to be able to welcome Atos to our ecosystem.”
 
“We conducted a procedure involving various parties before we opted for LCL,” Mr Hendrickx said. “In all our meetings, we experienced LCL's professionalism, attention to detail, long-term thinking, and sense of innovation when it comes to providing services. Like LCL, Atos is passionate about customer satisfaction, and this is reflected in the high scores we have obtained in the Whitelane Research IT Outsourcing Studies in recent years. For three consecutive years, Whitelane has ranked Atos Belgium as the number one company in Belgium for customer satisfaction in the ‘Data center and managed infrastructure services’ category. We are extremely proud of these results, and are convinced that partnering up with LCL puts us in the best position to maintain this position.”
 
“This partnership is highly strategic for Atos Belgium,” said Antoine Kerrinckx, CEO of Atos Belgium. “By relying on LCL to manage this data center and to drive the necessary continuous investments, Atos Belgium will be able to unleash IT innovations and to outclass the development of hybrid cloud solutions, thus maintaining its leading position in this segment. This is only feasible with the most trustworthy of partners, and LCL has definitely brought us that confidence.”
 
A fourth location for LCL, further growth, and constantly increasing scale
 
The Atos data center in Huizingen is LCL's fourth location and its third in the Brussels region. Scale is crucial in the data center world, owing to the massive investments that are required and the constant need to implement the latest technologies. The new data center in LCL's portfolio will be referred to as ‘LCL Brussels-South’. As the data center will be dedicated entirely to Atos and its customers, there is currently no space for other parties. There is, however, room to extend the data center.
 
“Besides growing by expanding our existing data centers, we also want to add new data centers in new locations,” Mr van Reijen explained. “The fact that Atos - a listed company and a global leader in digital transformation - has chosen LCL, confirms our leading position in the Belgian market. We owe it to ourselves to make the additional, ongoing investments in LCL's fourth data center location. After all, LCL sets the standard when it comes to ensuring data centers of the highest quality, and it will continue to do so. This is how we ensure our customers’ infrastructure is always up and running.”
 
Total investment of €5.5 million
 
LCL is taking over the Atos data center in Huizingen with immediate effect. During the next few years, LCL will continue to invest in the data center, so that it operates at the highest possible level (in particular at Tier 3 level, in line with LCL's other data centers). The entire transaction involves a total budget of €5.5 million.
 
No staff will be transferred from Atos to LCL. LCL's fourth data center location -  LCL Brussels-South - will be managed by the existing LCL team and two new employees that are yet to be recruited. The data center's customers will, of course, receive the same high standard of service as the customers of LCL's other data centers: LCL Brussels-North (Diegem), LCL Brussels-West (Aalst) and LCL Antwerp.