"A further important consideration was that LCL also had an expert in its ecosystem who could offer us peace of mind with regard to the connection. This enabled us to focus on the migration together with our customer,” says Andy Van Der Eeken

Fujitsu, a supplier of IT products and services who has been a customer of LCL Data Centers for five years, came to us on account of a specific requirement of one of its customers. The company needed a fast, powerful and temporary connection between LCL's data centers and Microsoft's Azure Cloud in Amsterdam to migrate a substantial volume of data. LCL Data Centers has the perfect solution: the Equinix Cloud Exchange. Andy Van Der Eeken, Head of Customer Service Management at Fujitsu, explains in greater detail.

A dedicated secure connection, in-house, and redundant

Fujitsu was planning to migrate data on its systems in an LCL data center to the Microsoft Azure data center in Amsterdam for one of its customers. Given the time pressure involved, the connection for the migration had to be set up quickly. To implement this within the scheduled budget, timing and forecast, Fujitsu had to be able to count on the responsiveness of LCL and its partner Equinix.

As Andy Van Der Eeken, Head of Customer Service Management at Fujitsu, explains: “To be able to perform the migration of data in a private cloud to MS Azure quickly and efficiently, a large amount of bandwidth was needed in a short time, namely 10 gigabits. In addition, being able to scale up strongly for the migration was also important for us, as was being able to scale back considerably once it was over or, in this case, even being able to stop using the connection.”

Once the quotation was sent out, Fujitsu didn't take long to decide. After a meeting with LCL Data Centers and a second quotation for the purpose of comparison, the Cloud Exchange emerged as the best solution. Equinix also offered the competitive advantage of managing most of the physical connection between both data centers itself. In addition, the connection is redundant.

Via the Azure Express Route, a dedicated secure connection, the connection was up and running in just two days. “A further important point was that LCL also had an expert in its ecosystem who could give us peace of mind with regard to the connection,” says Van Der Eeken. “This enabled us to focus on the migration together with our customer. Equinix employees provided help in conducting performance tests, as well as with potential issues. The Cloud Exchange is also a "pay as you use" solution: you only pay for it when you use it, and you are not tied to a contract for months or even years. "As a customer of LCL Data Centers, you can scale your bandwidth according to your needs via the self-service portal, which gives you complete control over your bandwidth and the associated costs, of course."

Fujitsu is also thinking of other uses for the Cloud Exchange

The migration of part of the data in a private cloud to a public cloud is a use case that Fujitsu certainly plans to repeat. The cloud exchange is also an interesting option if you still require minimal connectivity between both environments after the migration. And Fujitsu sees even more possible use cases. For example, the IT company is considering using the Cloud Exchange for backup & disaster recovery in the cloud. "We have customers who have data in one of LCL's data centers, with its backup in another LCL data center. For other customers, we are looking at the possibility of storing the backup in the cloud. A scalable and high-performance connection is important for this: with a smaller bandwidth for making an incremental backup, for example, and a much larger one in the case of disaster recovery. This provides a flexible solution that allows the customer to optimise costs."

Another application that the company is considering concerns the use of security services from the cloud. These sometimes require a different connectivity to that of a "normal" Internet connection. A dedicated, secure connection, like that of the cloud exchange at LCL, is better and easier.

"We see the Cloud Exchange as an extra service that we include in our offer to help all our customers for whom a dedicated secure connection of this kind provides added value. Now that we have this line, we can take action even faster when a need or opportunity presents itself," says Van Der Eeken.

Fujitsu has been using LCL Data Centers for housing services for five years now

For Fujitsu, LCL Data Centers houses the IT customer infrastructure managed by the IT company. Van Der Eeken explains why Fujitsu chose LCL Data Centers: "We consciously opted for LCL data centers because they are evenly distributed across Belgium. The location of the data centers also ensures that they can quickly connect with other data centers in Belgium, and with minimal latency. The fact that there was an entire ecosystem of carriers and other parties in place was also important to us. This means we can offer a broader range of options to the customers we house at LCL." 

The cooperation between Fujitsu and LCL has only expanded further In recent years. "Overall, we are very satisfied with LCL Data Centers. LCL has a competitive pricing policy and years of expertise, and also provides an excellent service. The company is very flexible and cooperative,” concludes Van Der Eeken.

"We consciously opted for LCL data centers because they are evenly distributed across Belgium. The location of the data centers also ensures that they can quickly connect with other data centers in Belgium, and with minimal latency. The fact that there was an entire ecosystem of carriers and other parties in place was also important to us. This means we can offer a broader range of possibilities to the customers we house at LCL."