For Colt Data Centres, Oracle-Microsoft multicloud delivers
Using Oracle Cloud and Microsoft Azure Interconnect, Colt Data Centre Services runs workloads faster, more reliably, and at lower cost.
“We now have a seamless multicloud environment where nothing feels separate. It’s faster, with zero downtime, and saves us money.”
Business challenges
Michael Kusmierowicz knew he had to do something. As global IT infrastructure manager for Colt Data Centre Services, he saw its core database struggling to keep up with the company’s growth. Based in London, Colt has 26 state-of-the-art facilities in Europe and Asia-Pacific. These massive hyperscale data centers power its customers’ surging data and computing needs.
Colt was running its Oracle Database 19c on a couple of Microsoft Azure virtual machines. “Hosting an Oracle Database on an infrastructure that isn’t tailored to the purpose held us back,” says Kusmierowicz. “Our platform couldn’t keep pace with our business expansion. We also incurred high costs in hosting and support, with my team constantly trying to hotfix our solution.”
Finding a better alternative was an urgent priority. “The database hosts everything we do,” says Kusmierowicz, “including customer data and billing. It helps us run the business and makes sure the money flows.”
The Interconnect solution has essentially remade our entire stack, in the best way possible. It solved all the database problems we had been experiencing.
Why Colt Data Centres Chose Oracle
To improve performance, Colt needed a completely native solution, one that ran its Oracle Database on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) such as Oracle Database Cloud Service. When Oracle announced its Interconnect partnership with Microsoft, Colt jumped at the opportunity. Built on a private, direct connection—a kind of high-speed “express lane”—Interconnect lets businesses migrate workloads and seamlessly run them across Azure and Oracle Cloud. The company could migrate its database to OCI and keep it connected to Azure. “The speed of deployment, easy configuration, and trust in both companies cemented the decision,” says Kusmierowicz.
Results
Working with systems integrator DSP, Colt planned a six-month implementation. It took only two months, however, giving Kusmierowicz’s team extra time to tweak the solution.
When they unveiled it, “The solution was blazing fast,” he says, with OCI-Azure latency as low as 1.1 milliseconds. “It felt like the Oracle Database was sitting right next to the VMs in Azure.” Two Azure virtual machines still form the front end of Colt’s platform, sending mega-workloads to OCI via Interconnect’s pipeline.
The solution has been rock-solid, with zero outages. It’s also been cost-effective, yielding savings of about 15% compared to the old setup. Using OCI’s CapEx model, Colt expects the savings to double in the next year.
Built-in OCI security helps Colt comply with extensive industry regulations. And as a managed service, Interconnect comes with Oracle technical support.
“It’s really about using best-of-breed solutions,” says Kusmierowicz. “Who can host an Oracle Database better than Oracle? Or a Windows VM better than Microsoft? It’s truly the best of both worlds.”
Partners
DSP helped migrate Colt’s database to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and manage the implementation.