The solar electricity market has undergone explosive growth in recent years as homeowners, farmers and businesses all look to exploit the potential of solar power. As Segen expanded its operations to meet the rising demand for solar photovoltaic products, the company’s IT infrastructure was struggling to keep pace, and there were numerous network issues around reliability, connectivity and security.

1. IBM Case Study Energy & Utilities
Segen stays on the
cutting-edge of the solar
electricity market
With a cloud service based on IBM BladeCenter S and
managed by Vissensa
Overview
Business challenge
Segen’s limited IT infrastructure was
struggling to keep pace with the
increasing requirements placed on it by
steady increase in customer demand. Its
physical servers were unable to support
the growing volumes of data being
generated, while limited network capacity
hampered communication across
company sites and prevented staff from
responding efficiently when new business
opportunities emerged.
Solution
Segen worked with IBM®
Business
Partner Vissensa to migrate its two
existing physical servers to a virtualised
server environment, VsX, which is based
on IBM BladeCenter®
. Vissensa also
provides a managed wide area network
service and an on-site local area network,
and offers complete support and
maintenance for the entire solution.
Segen was established in 2005 as a value-added distributor and
installer of renewable energy technologies. Since October 2010, the
company has concentrated on the distribution of solar photovoltaic
(PV) equipment and the provision of value-added services to installers
certified under the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS).
Headquartered in Aldershot, Segen is one of the UK’s largest
distributors of solar photovoltaic products, which it supplies to a
network of MCS-certified installers, and has long-standing trading
relationships with a number of major manufacturers.
Keeping up with customer demand
The solar electricity market has undergone explosive growth in recent
years as homeowners, farmers and businesses all look to exploit the
potential of solar power. As Segen expanded its operations to meet
the rising demand for solar photovoltaic products, the company’s IT
infrastructure was struggling to keep pace, and there were numerous
network issues around reliability, connectivity and security.
Previously, all company applications were hosted on two Dell servers
running Microsoft Small Business Server, located at the company
headquarters in Aldershot. Segen also operates a number of remote
offices, and many of its agents work from home and remote temporary
sites. As online systems became more critical to the business, having
the servers on-site caused slow access for remote users, which made
communication between employees and external contacts challenging.
Furthermore, the sharing of corporate files across the enterprise was
open to security issues, and difficult to manage and control efficiently.
Lucy Loosemore, Sales and Marketing Manager at Segen, says, “As
the business expanded and customer demand increased, our existing
servers were struggling to support the growing volumes of data being
generated. Additionally, our limited network capacity was really
hindering user productivity and was the source of much frustration for
staff.”
Segen’s growth was in danger of being held back by the limitations of
its on-premise infrastructure. As the company’s servers began to reach
the end of their useful life, Segen took the opportunity to look for a
new approach that would help it to improve business efficiency and
react more flexibly to the needs of its customers.

2. IBM Case Study Energy & Utilities
2
Business Benefits
• Gained a highly efficient virtualised
environment that offers flexible storage
management.
• Provided a reliable disaster recovery
option, improving ease and speed of
database recovery in the event of failure.
• Improved business efficiency and
flexibility by giving staff remote access to
company systems.
Highly-available cloud solution
Segen’s existing IT supplier was unable to provide adequate support
for the day-to-day operations of the business, as well as for the
process changes which were required to allow Segen to cope with its
increasing customer demand, prompting the company to seek out a
new contractor.
“We needed a supplier who could support all of our IT needs:
providing and supporting our servers, wide area networks and online
customer systems, and offering day-to-day support for our desktop
users,” explains Loosemore. “Vissensa offered us a way forward by
suggesting that we migrate to a cloud-based solution, and making it
easy for us to do so.”
Vissensa, an IBM Business Partner, virtualised Segen’s existing physical
servers and migrated them to Vissensa’s VsX platform, a high-
availability platform for cloud-based solutions. The service is delivered
from state-of-the-art high-specification data centres and is based on
the IBM BladeCenter chassis with HS22V blade servers, which are
optimised for running virtual server landscapes. Vissensa runs eight
virtual servers for Segen, which include a Microsoft Small Business
Server, two database servers, a terminal server and web servers. This
virtualised environment can be securely accessed on demand from any
location via any standard browser, providing staff with full access to
services in the office, at home, and on the road.
Vissensa worked closely in conjunction with Segen’s other suppliers,
such as the developers of the company’s customer website portal and
order processing systems, to ensure full integration of the new solution
with other business systems.
Finally, a wide area network (WAN) service was implemented, which
includes flexible and scalable internet connections at each of Segen’s
remote sites. Vissensa provides full management across the WAN
and Segen’s on-site local area network, and also provides capacity
upgrades and desktop support to users. The cloud-based solution and
comprehensive support and maintenance offered by Vissensa have
essentially eliminated the need for an on-site IT department at Segen.
Vissensa covers all the costs related to running and managing the
server platform, and charges a monthly fee to Segen for its cloud-based
services, which further simplifies IT management at Segen.
Scalable storage and on-demand network
access
By leveraging a flexible cloud-based infrastructure, Segen benefits
from the ability to quickly and easily increase the capacity of its servers
to meet the growing demands of an ever-expanding customer base
and rising staff numbers. This was particularly relevant at the end of
September 2011, when the government announced amendments to its
“Feed-In Tariffs” scheme, which pays UK homeowners for creating
their own green electricity with renewable energy systems, such as solar

3. IBM Case Study Energy & Utilities
3
Solution Components
Hardware
• IBM®
BladeCenter®
with HS22V Blades
Services
• Vissensa VsX
IBM Business Partner
• Vissensa
PV panels. These changes resulted in a massive overnight increase in
orders placed via Segen’s order portal and required the company to
double its number of employees.
Furthermore, Segen has seen cost and time savings, as it no longer
needs to buy and configure additional hardware to meet new
requirements. Reduced server deployment times will allow the
company to expand its product range and get new products into its
catalogue more quickly, helping the business to remain on the forefront
of industry developments and increase revenues.
The use of WAN acceleration technologies has allowed Segen to keep
down the size of the internet connections at each site, and also ensures
that its backup broadband internet connections provide sufficient
connectivity to allow staff to continue working in the event of the
primary internet connection failing. Now, employees have rapid,
on-demand access to company systems from any location, allowing
the business to be much more flexible and responsive to customer
requirements.
Improved data recovery
The service also allows for a cost-effective database recovery
environment to be provided and tested on a regular basis to ensure
that, in the event of a disaster scenario, Segen will be able to quickly
and efficiently resume business operations. “In the past we backed up
our systems on tape and then moved to off-site backups, but it was too
hard to test so we could never be sure if our data was really safe,” says
Loosemore. “Now, we carry out tests on a monthly basis and know
that, in the event of a failure, all our systems can be brought back
online within a couple of hours.”
Focusing on the business
Migrating to a virtualised, cloud-based solution has given Segen
the capacity and availability it needs to keep pace with the growing
demands of its business, as well as the flexibility to react quickly
to issues as they arise. As Loosemore concludes, “With the cloud-
based service, we no longer need to worry about the underlying IT
infrastructure. This allows us to focus all our energy on the core
business of selling and delivering products, and to respond better to our
customers’ needs.”
About Vissensa
Vissensa is an independent systems integrator and data centre hosting
provider with a proven track record of delivering innovative and
cost-effective solutions across the key support areas of business
optimisation, business protection, and hosting and managed services.
Vissensa provides on premise, hybrid or hosted solutions for all types
of businesses that require high quality, high availability computing
platforms regardless of size.
“We needed a supplier who
could support all of our
IT needs: providing and
supporting our servers,
wide area networks and
online customer systems,
and offering day-to-day
support for our desktop
users. Vissensa offered
us a way forward by
suggesting that we
migrate to a cloud-based
solution, and making it
easy for us to do so.”
— Lucy Loosemore, Sales and Marketing
Manager at Segen

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