Customer Case Study:  IT Farm

So I’m good. Are you good? So tell me what your name is, what you do, and why you’re here, apart from the fact that you were told to come here?

My name is Carl Enser. I’m the service delivery manager for a company called IT Farm. We use Melbourne for rack space and IP transit.

So what led you to Melbourne? What were the circumstances?

We were actually using another hosting provider at the time who couldn’t provide us with the correct level of SLA we needed and only Melbourne could guarantee us that at the time. Speaking to other people in the industry as well, who were very, very quick to recommend Melbourne.

What did they say about Melbourne when they spoke to you?

When speaking to other people in the industry, they said Melbourne were really belt and braces, really conscientious about support and their service delivery, and also they really took disaster recovery as a high priority.

Because you take rack space from them, is it important that they have their own data centres?

It’s very important that Melbourne have their own data centres, as we wouldn’t ever trust a white labeller. They don’t have ultimate control over what goes in that data centre. The fact that Melbourne have ultimate control means that they’re the single point of failure and they can plan against that.

Why is this belt and braces approach important to you and how good do you think Melbourne are at belt and braces?

The belt and braces approach is really important to us because we have to be up 100% of the time. And without Melbourne guaranteeing their up time, we couldn’t guarantee that to our customers, and Melbourne so far have been excellent, in that their uptime has been great. And if there is a problem it’s always dealt with professionally and quickly.

So, Carl, is it you who tends to speak to Melbourne if there’s an issue or a problem?

It is. We’ll dispatch two of our own guys out to the data centre very quickly. It will be me who calls Melbourne and liaises with Melbourne to find out if they’re aware of the problem or if it’s within our infrastructure. They’ve always been very professional over the phone.

Do you always speak to different people or do you have one person that you normally deal with?

I’ll generally ask for a couple of set people who we’ve known since the onset of dealing with Melbourne, but anyone you do get through, if they’re unavailable for some reason and I do get to speak to someone else, everyone at Melbourne is very professional.

They have their service level agreements, as we’ve talked about. What do you think about the speeds that you’re getting out of them compared with perhaps the speeds that other equivalent companies might quote.

Well, the speed Melbourne quotes is generally the speed we get. They don’t lie about their speed. It is exactly what they say on the tin. We find their speed to be exceptional. The only time they ever find problems, is outside their network, outside their control, and if they find a problem outside their network and they can route around that they will.

What about other companies? Have you had experience of other companies perhaps being rather fanciful about their speeds?

We have dealt with other companies who do claim to have certain speeds, but when you actually get in there and have a look it’s nowhere near that.

So if you do have queries regarding the infrastructure with Melbourne, how quickly do they sort it out?

When I call Melbourne, nine out of ten times they will answer your query on the phone, while you speak to them within a few minutes. If it’s deeper than that they will keep you updated as they’re going through the call. It will be ten minutes the first time you speak to them and then they update you every couple of hours as the problem continues to be resolved.

What would you say to other companies in your situation, other companies who might be looking for infrastructure for rack space? What would you say to them?

If I was to talk about getting hosting for any other provider, I’d never hesitate to recommend Melbourne. After dealing with other people in the industry, Melbourne is head and shoulders above the rest.