Telford Offshore – A globally trusted partner providing safe access and support of offshore work sites
Telford Offshore is a new global company built on years of experience in the oil and gas industry. Headquartered in Dubai, the organization was formed through several vessel acquisitions. The company supports multiple offshore activities, focusing on high-capacity accommodation, lifting, fabrication, and installation services. A single Telford Offshore vessel can accommodate 400 marine crew for projects, including laying pipelines and conducting subsea construction. Each vessel can provide accommodation services to transport, lift and install subsea or topside components, lay pipe, and carry out subsea construction work. The company has a total of four modern vessels, all built since 2007, with multipurpose capabilities ensuring that diverse operations can be undertaken by one single vessel.
KEY CHALLENGES
- Management of inherited legacy IT systems through company acquisition is time-consuming, costly, and complex to maintain
Avoiding complex environments with VMware to free up time through simplified management
Cloud-based solutions were ruled out due to expensive satellite connections
Limited IT staff on hand at offshore sites to manage and maintain IT systems
THE SCALE COMPUTING SOLUTION
Telford Offshore selected Scale Computing Platform to support its headquarters in Dubai, where its corporate and project management team organize and support marine operations on its vessels.
BUSINESS BENEFITS
Simplified and reduced management time
Complete redundancy – always on 24/7/365
Business continuity
Snapshot replication and backup
Ready for future deployments at sea
Existing IT environment
Telford Offshore took over a legacy IT environment built on HP Blade as part of its acquisition. The company saw this as an opportunity to bring in a completely new and modern IT infrastructure that could be customized to suit the business’s unique requirements.
The existing storage was difficult and complex to manage. The company was acquiring different businesses, which posed the perfect opportunity to reevaluate its IT systems. Not only was it essential to ensure smooth and streamlined IT management, but any new system should be future-proof and able to meet upcoming edge computing plans. Wouter Lustig, IT Manager at Telford Offshore, commented, “The legacy system we had inherited through the acquisition was reaching the end of its lifespan, and it required more time to manage than we had available. As a new company, we wanted to start fresh with an IT system that was right for us. We wanted a solution that was simple to manage and would be future-proof for possible further deployments on the vessels at sea. It was essential that this solution would save us time on the day-to-day management.”
The Scale Computing solution arrived, there was no need for an instruction manual, and within 40 minutes we had the first Windows server up and running – it was as easy as that. We copied the database over, and the performance increase was immediately noticeable.
IT Challenges
Ensuring Telford Offshore deployed the right solution was critical to the business. With vessels at sea, the technology must be available 24/7/365, and it was critical for the deployed system to be fully redundant. The IT infrastructure also needed to be incredibly simple and time-efficient to manage the business, with low overhead on day-to-day IT administration. Working offshore and in remote sites means the company does not have the same level of onsite expertise to hand.
In addition, since internet connectivity is slow and costly at sea, the company decided any infrastructure would need to be local and on-premises. With these key requirements, Telford Offshore decided a hyperconverged solution was the way forwards. Lustig explained, “We knew we needed a hyperconverged solution as it combines everything we need for our IT infrastructure into one easy to manage appliance, all while being cost-effective and efficient.”
He continued, “Our WAN connection is via satellite which is extremely expensive, instantly ruling out a possible cloud solution as it would not work in the long run. In addition, with limited IT staff on our vessels, we needed a system that was so simple to manage it could be installed and used by someone with no technical experience. If we needed to send out technical staff to manage any issues, it could become vastly expensive.”
Proof of Concept
After deciding on a hyperconverged solution, Telford Offshore evaluated several vendors, including Nutanix and SimpliVity, before choosing Scale Computing’s solution. Lustig explained, “We evaluated the market; however, Nutanix and SimpliVity weren’t what we were looking for. We needed to be able to guarantee performance and ensure simplified management. Nutanix were secretive around their performance figures in the field, and SimpliVity required a lot of technical work.”
Telford Offshore reached out on the Spiceworks network to discuss hyperconverged deployments with the wider international IT community. Lustig noted, “After reaching out on Spiceworks, we got a response from Scale Computing. The company was open and helpful in answering a number of questions we had around hyperconvergence and how it would fit with our IT requirements. After looking at Nutanix, HPE’s SimpliVity, and Scale Computing, it was clear that the platform offered us exactly what we needed – a complete, cost-effective, easy to manage data center in a box.”
Telford Offshore worked with its partner Cegeka. After a successful proof of concept, the company deployed an HC1150 three-node cluster, which offered snapshot replication, onsite backup, high availability, and full redundancy. Guy Verstraeten, Director of Infrastructure Benelux at Cegeka commented, “Scale Computing Platform was a natural fit. The solution was designed with simplicity, scalability, and availability at its core, and these three aspects matched the business’s requirements perfectly. It pairs greatly with our added services and expertise in hyperconverged infrastructure. Our customers are often looking to save time and simplify their IT environments, so it is great to have Scale Computing’s solution as part of our product portfolio.”
Benefits and planning for a simplified future
Telford Offshore immediately noticed enhanced performance and simplified management when the solution was deployed. Lustig noted, “Scale Computing's solution arrived, there was no need for an instruction manual, and within 40 minutes we had the first Windows server up and running – it was as easy as that. We copied the database over, and the performance increase was immediately noticeable.”
In addition, as a growing company, Telford Offshore wanted the flexibility to scale and grow on demand. The Scale Computing solution allows nodes to be added as and when required, eliminating the need to over-provision storage as IT infrastructure is built out to meet unique business and application needs. The system also provides replication, snapshot, and cloning technology capabilities, providing the continuity and redundancy needed to keep IT systems up and running 24/7/365.
Alongside performance requirements, a vital part of the IT deployment was ensuring that Telford Offshore could future-proof its environment. Lustig concluded, “We wanted the solution to be a long-term future-proof investment with the possibility of deploying it on the vessels at sea. Being low on overhead, the solution needed to be simple enough for the one or two electricians on board to install and deploy. Scale Computing’s solution is perfect to meet these requirements. It operates as its own data center in a box and can easily connect back to the deployment at the Dubai headquarters. We are still amazed at how easy it is to install, deploy, and manage. We don’t need to worry about the management of the day-to-day solution; it just takes care of itself.”
ABOUT SCALE COMPUTING
Scale Computing is a leader in edge computing, virtualization, and hyperconverged solutions. Using patented HyperCore™ technology, Scale Computing Platform automatically identifies, mitigates, and corrects infrastructure problems in real-time, enabling applications to achieve maximum uptime, even when local IT resources and staff are scarce. Edge Computing is the fastest growing area of IT infrastructure, and industry analysts have named Scale Computing an outperformer and leader in the space, including being named the #1 edge computing vendor by CRN. Scale Computing’s products are sold by thousands of value-added resellers, integrators, and service providers worldwide. When ease-of-use, high availability, and TCO matter, Scale Computing Platform is the ideal infrastructure platform. Read what our customers have to say on Gartner Peer Insights, Spiceworks, TechValidate, G2 and TrustRadius.