UltraServe drives cloud expansion with pods

UltraServe has created a modular architecture it plans to use as the technical foundation for its national expansion.

The UltraPOD architecture uses IBM hardware that is shipped to UltraServe in a custom, pre-configured state, essentially allowing it to be dropped into new or existing data centres to quickly bolster capacity.

Chief executive Samuel Yeats told iTnews that he wanted to be able to have a new point-of-presence "up and running within 45 days" of signing a purchase order.

"Previously to do a whole data centre deployment is a six month-plus project involving a lot of people [and] integration work," Yeats said.

"We're growing pretty quick and want to continue growing rapidly. We also want to grow out to some more locations around the country.

"If we want to scale out to other data centres, we need to have a holistic data centre deployment model where I can sign a purchase order to say we're going ahead, and it would just happen behind the scenes without [having] to hire teams of 10-15 people to do it."

UltraServe plans to bring a Melbourne data centre online in August this year, augmenting its existing presence in Sydney and Brisbane.

"Melbourne is a key market we've wanted to get into for two-to-three years," Yeats said.

"We have lot of existing customers in Melbourne that consume services out of [our] Sydney and Brisbane [facilities]."

Likewise, the company is planning an entry into the Canberra market.

"That's something that's back on the agenda," Yeats said.

New facilities will be fitted with UltraPOD modules overlaid with UltraServe's orchestration software that manages provisioning and control of its public and private cloud and hosting services.

The first UltraPOD modules have been placed into the company's existing Sydney data centre as a way to scale up capacity there.

Previously, Yeats said, a capacity upgrade at an existing data centre might have taken between three and six months to complete.

Although UltraServe has rethought its IT architecture, it will keep its existing servers - 95 percent of which are IBM - running, replacing them with UltraPODs only when they reach end-of-life.

The UltraPOD architecture was born out of an internal IT architecture review last year.