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The role of the data center for today’s organization has expanded beyond maintaining servers and managing information. The innovative data center is the cloud data center that enables consolidation, risk mitigation and performance maximization. For a number of progressive companies, these benefits are possible with Panduit.

A case study featuring the MMM Group highlights the benefits of Panduit’s approach to the cloud data center. The MMM Group is a firm focused on engineering, consulting, planning, surveying, project management and commissioning services. Due to its success in the market, the firm expanded considerably over the past five years, acquiring eight other companies, while also growing organically. As a result, MMM Group needed to consolidate its operations.

With staff spread across six local offices, a number of operational, logistic and collaboration challenges existed. For one, each location was operating its own legacy IT system. Plus, the physical distance between the two limited the potential for teamwork. The firm wanted everyone within Toronto under one roof, and the ability to connect other staff members based in satellite offices throughout Canada.

“We wanted to move into a new headquarters facility and centralize and standardize our IT infrastructure so that everyone in the company could easily access and share all our knowledge resources,” said Dan Butler, partner at MMM Group, in the case study. “During the previous period of rapid growth, we had simply made do with whatever system existed in each acquired location. But the time had come for a carefully planned and designed facility that could optimize business processes and enhance communications.”

Like other organizations, MMM Group had specific requirements for its data center. Engineers and scientists within the firm work with complex CAD and CAE software in bandwidth-intensive files that are often confidential. The cloud data center solution needed to provide powerful computing capabilities, as well as stringent data security to meet the company’s demands. Plus, the solution also had to provide high availability without interruptions or delays.

In leveraging a cloud data center in the new location, operational efficiency was a primary goal. At the same time, MMM Group also wanted to reduce the impact on the environment, something the cloud data center can enable. In turning to Panduit, the firm was able to optimize power and cooling systems to cut energy.

After finding a new location to house all local employees, MMM Group then needed to work with Panduit to provide the infrastructure. And, with ambitious growth plans, MMM Group needed a partner that could provide scalable solutions and grow with them. The timeline was short, but Panduit’s global distribution network helped to ensure the project was finished ahead of schedule.

To meet the needs of MMM Group, Panduit provided a Category 6A copper cabling system with extra bandwidth capacity, and 10 Gigabit cabling was deployed to each desktop to prepare for the increasing demands of the next decade. The solution also delivered interoperability throughout all facility and network systems that allowed for the integration of key elements associated with systems consolidation and network convergence. At the same time, the cloud data center provides a powerful marketing tool, as it allows the MMM Group to practice what it preaches to clients about convergence.

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