iomart Hosting secures 3 year managed services deal with UK’s largest online learning provider

Wednesday 16th December 2009, London, UK: iomart Hosting has today announced won a three year contract with learndirect, the UK’s biggest online learning provider.

iomart Hosting has agreed a serviced colocation (http://www.iomarthosting.com/colocation) deal with learndirect’s operators Ufi Ltd, to deliver Disaster Recovery for its main IT services.

learndirect provides online training to more than 240,000 individuals each year as well as businesses across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. learndirect has its own in-house operations and service delivery teams to manage the technology and the platforms on which courses are delivered.

Fiona Benoist, technology services manager for learndirect said:” We needed a disaster recovery facility that could meet our requirements for continuity of service, accessibility, security, environmental considerations and best practice. Iomart Hosting came out on top. Our aim is to ensure that our learners can access their learning around the clock when they need to. ”

Sarah Haran, managing director of iomart Hosting, said:” Around 10,000 e-learners log on to study with learndirect every day. By utilising iomart Hosting’s disaster recovery facilities, the learndirect team can now fully concentrate on delivery to their learners without worrying about uptime and service interruptions.”

iomart Hosting owns and operates a purpose-built UK network of five data centres (http://www.iomarthosting.com/about-us/our-approach/our-data-centres). Each data centre, located in the City of London, Leicester, Nottingham, Glasgow and Maidenhead, features the latest power efficient technology, is fully scalable, secure and resilient and is supported by an on-site 24 x 7 Network Operations Centre team.

Sarah Haran added: “By owning our data centres, and therefore free of legacy operating practices, we are able to design and deliver bespoke hosting solutions to the exact requirements of our clients. We are delighted to have been awarded the learndirect account by Ufi Limited and look forward to serving them for many years to come.”

learndirect awarded the contract to iomart Hosting after a competitive tendering process carried out under European Union procurement rules.

Fiona Benoist added:” Since 2000 we have used technology to enable more than 2.65 million adults to gain the skills they, their employers and the economy need, helping them on their way into further training or employment. Having the security of this disaster recovery provision means we can continue to harness the web and reach millions more as the need for skills becomes increasingly important.”


Notes to editors

1. learndirect has become the UK’s leading online learning provider, reaching into local communities, the workplace and people’s homes with flexible, accessible and supported online learning. It provides online learning to individuals and businesses in England, Wales and Northern Ireland
Over the past ten years, since learndirect first took the bold step of providing learning online, it has grown to become one of the UK’s biggest and most recognised e-learning brands, with a unique infrastructure enabling more than 10,000 learners to log on and learn every day. For more information visit www.learndirect.co.uk and www.ufi.com

2.iomart Hosting is one of the UK’s leading providers of hosting services. From a single server through to private cloud networks, iomart specialises in the delivery and management of mission-critical hosting services, enabling customers to reduce the costs, complexity and risks associated with maintaining their own web and online applications. By physically owning and managing its own network infrastructure, including five state-of-the-art data centres in the UK, it offers world-beating levels of service to its customers.
For more information visit www.iomarthosting.com

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