Sony’s name is synonymous with innovation in audio-visual communication. As a consumer-led electronics company, the Internet channel is a vital communications and marketing tool through which its customers can access product information, as well as purchase products and services.

Guaranteeing the performance of its websites is therefore of vital importance to the business. As Frank Cunnane, director of infrastructure for Sony Europe, explains: “Providing continuously available online services not only leverages our ability to communicate with our customers, but it is also essential for our brand image.”

Delivering this continuous service, however, was becoming increasingly both complex and time-consuming for Sony. “The web infrastructure relies on many different hardware and software components at various levels in the technology framework. This requires a vast and disparate skill set to support, making maintenance and management extremely resource intensive,” comments Cunnane. “In addition, we face the ongoing difficulty of forecasting capacity requirements.”

To overcome these challenges, Sony decided to outsource the management of its European Internet computing centre to Computacenter. “Outsourcers have an important role to play in the constant effort to drive down costs. We continually review which processes involve core and non-core information systems and the best sourcing strategies,” adds Cunnane.

Under the three-year managed services contract, Computacenter provides a range of infrastructure services, many of them remotely from one of its operations centres. The infrastructure, which underpins the company’s European marketing and dealer sites, is based on a broad suite of multivendor technologies. Sony’s 70 servers, applications and interface processes are all monitored round-the-clock by Computacenter to help safeguard business continuity and improve uptime.

Computacenter is also responsible for incident and change management, software and database administration, application distribution and asset management. And it also helps to manage Sony’s load balancers, storage and backup infrastructure, switches and firewalls.

“The infrastructure is highly complex and has to cope with a data transfer volume in excess of five terabytes per month,” comments John Opara, Sony’s account manager at Computacenter. “Guaranteeing resilience and capacity is an essential part of the service, as well as delivering best value.” Computacenter is helping Sony adopt ITIL-based processes as part of the outsourcing partnership.

As well as developing IT best practice, Sony also expects to see significant improvements in service levels and cost reduction over the course of the contract. It is estimated that the contract will save the company around 20 per cent on its previous overheads. “By outsourcing the IT infrastructure, we can concentrate on our core business and benefit from considerable cost benefits,” comments Cunnane.

As part of the agreement, eight Sony employees transferred to Computacenter under TUPE regulations. “The transition phase was handled very professionally and sensitively,” comments Cunnane. “We have not only been able to retain our intellectual property as part of the managed services agreement but also offer our employees good opportunities with an IT company.”

The combination of this expertise and Computacenter’s remote management capabilities means Sony can deliver consistent and enhanced online services.