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INDUSTRY, TECHNOLOGY, PRODUCTS and INNOVATION you want to read about

Cape Town company transforms UK smart web, over the phone and over-the-counter.
Multi-factor security for its remote employees
metering provider with Microsoft Azure accessing the system was implemented to assure
the integrity and security of customer data.
“Pay-as-you-go (PAYG) customers are
estcon-Comstor Sub-Saharan Africa, a leading global distributor, announced Cape Town-based IT the single most important aspect of Insite’s
Wsolutions provider and Microsoft partner, RJ45 Networking Solutions, has recently migrated the business. They have no other way to top
IT environment of UK metering and billing agent, Insite Energy, to Microsoft Azure. up their utilities, and our clients expect this
The migration was done without downtime to live services, including Insite Energy’s newly platform to be up 100 percent of the time. The
launched in-house digital prepayment web app, enabling the organisation to significantly enhance its Azure migration had to be cognizant of that,
billing and meter management services to its clients and customers. with downtime not an option. Given the scale of
Benefits enjoyed by the company resulting from its migration to Azure include significant the project, this was a significant challenge for
performance improvements and significantly more flexibility with all its services, including its call RJ45, which it handled with aplomb,” says Uys.
centre, now available in the cloud. According to Uys, its experience working with RJ45 has been “Within Azure, we can now access live data
excellent, even though the migration was a complex undertaking. The RJ45 team was always available and be in full control of our environment. Insite
for support, and it addressed issues virtually and instantaneously. can perform monitoring on an individual virtual
Insite Energy is a UK metering and billing agent working with heat suppliers and landlords who machine basis to identify any bottlenecks,
have heat networks installed in their buildings. The company provides smart metering, billing, and whether it be metering or customer payments.
payment services to more than 250 heat network schemes and 25,000 homes in the UK. In recent Previously, we had no idea why some of our
years, Insite’s ageing IT environment made it challenging to service customers and clients cost- servers were running slowly and had to throw
effectively and to a high quality. The company opted to standardise on Microsoft Azure to enhance its more computing power at them. With the work
existing cloud environment and servers hosted in remote data centres. RJ45 has done, we now have visibility of our
“Although we have always been cloud-focused, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a massive impact entire IT environment,” adds Uys.
on the way companies work. For instance, our Peterborough call centre had fewer people coming into “Our servers are now linked at the speeds
the office due to lockdown restrictions. Generally, work from home has benefited our business, as we required with no bottlenecks constraining our
wanted to offer our staff greater flexibility and provide business continuity. By choosing Azure and operational success. We can perform backups
Microsoft 365, we have achieved this,” says Louis Uys, Head of IT at Insite Energy. and have restores instantly available, which
Making the shift, employees can work from anywhere, with files accessible via Microsoft Teams, previously took a few days to perform. Our
email available through Microsoft 365 and a virtual private network (VPN). As part of the migration, client and customer experience have improved
RJ45 took over firewall management, moving user computers away from a traditional IP address set-up significantly due to this, which opens up more
and ensuring Insite Energy’s VPNs and firewalls would integrate with Azure. This required overhauling business opportunities for us,” says Uys.
the company’s existing VPN solutions from third-party vendors, of which there were many. Insite employees can now operate using a
Additionally, Insite Energy migrated its top-up payment environment, which supports over the laptop and an internet connection from anywhere
counter (OTC) payments at PayPoint outlets, requiring every UK PayPoint affiliate to send a payment in the world through a Windows Remote Desktop
request over a VPN link to the Insite Unix Payment Server in Azure. And seamless connectivity to its session. Azure’s old software licensing structure
brand-new in-house prepayment web-app solution, KURVE, allows customers to make payments on the has also significantly benefitted.

Africa Data Centres unveils its

latest class data centre at their
Midrand campus

frica Data Centres, the only pan-African network of interconnected,
Acarrier-and cloud-neutral data centres on the continent, has completed
its new Johannesburg data centre, based in its Midrand Campus which is
one of the largest in Africa. This state-of-the-art facility, designed with the
latest global standards, is the ideal location for technology companies and
enterprises to secure IT infrastructure in an interconnected environment.
This ultra-modern facility continues to strengthen the leading position
that Africa Data Centres has in the South African market.
The new hyperscale data centre is one of the continent’s most digital transformation journeys. The unveiling of the new facility comes
significant data centre deployments, which alongside existing facilities amidst Africa Data Centres’ announcement of plans to build 10 additional
across the Africa Continent further entrenches Africa Data Centres’ data centres in new countries and to significantly expand its data centre
dominance on the Continent. footprint by more than twice its current capacity across Africa.
The new data centre is part of the company’s response to the demand
for data centres as businesses across the continent accelerate their For more information visit www.africadatacentres.com

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