OGD, a market leading Dutch ICT service provider, relies on LeaseWeb’s facilities to roll out Software as a Service (Saas) services. Its service offering includes Historium, an online backup service. "LeaseWeb’s products and services represent an excellent price/quality ratio.”

The Organization
OGD is an ICT service provider with branch offices in Delft, Amsterdam, Utrecht, Eindhoven and Enschede. The company was founded by Delft students in 1988 and, in recent years, has evolved into a company with over 700 employees. The organization employs well educated young ICT professionals and is characterized by a very technical approach. Among other things, OGD provides services in the field of management, migration & implementation, helpdesk, software development, and project management. Its customers include Fortis, Eneco, Nutricia Netherlands, TNO, and the World Wildlife Fund.

SaaS Hosting
Office automation is slowly becoming a commodity, with the current broadband connections allowing for trouble-free remote application running. This is why OGD wants to offer its customers the possibility of buying office automation as Software as a Service (Saas).

“We run the services in a LeaseWeb data center, but manage the servers and applications ourselves,” explains Stefan Schinning, Project Manager at OGD. “LeaseWeb’s hosting facilities ensure a high uptime. LeaseWeb provides a secure and climate controlled environment as well as a continuous power supply. The benefit of SaaS for our customers is that they no longer have to invest in hardware, licenses and a server room. They can take out a subscription at a fixed monthly fee, outsourcing their office automation.”

Comparing Hosting Providers
When OGD started looking for a data center to support the SaaS project in September 2007, the company compared several Dutch hosting providers. Says Schinning, “We first did an internet-based study, then went to visit three data centers. We noted the huge price differences between the hosting providers, sometimes as much as 100%. Moreover, it always looks good on the internet when you visit the sites of hosting providers, but the setup of some of the data centers in the Netherlands was definitely below par in our eyes.”

Good Hosting
“Everything works at LeaseWeb," says Schinning. “Their racks, the power supply, the connections, climate control, uptime.” Their data center looks good, is well cared for and organized - and at a favorable price/quality ratio. The best thing about LeaseWeb is that they provide the infrastructure on which we can build services. LeaseWeb itself is not set up to offer services like ours and therefore complements OGD’s services.”

“We have a click with LeaseWeb”
In LeaseWeb, OGD also found an organization with the same philosophy, adhering to the same principles and operating method as OGD itself. Says Schinning, “Like us, LeaseWeb is made up of a group of technicians, people who like what they do and are proud of what they can do. And they are growing too, primarily thanks to their excellent price/quality ratio. LeaseWeb offers great quality, but doesn’t ask the highest price for what they provide. We do exactly the same thing.”

Good Data Center
LeaseWeb has installed OGD’s equipment in 19-inch racks at EvoSwitch, the CO2 neutral data center that, like LeaseWeb, is part of the OCOM Group. “We were pleasantly surprised when we checked out EvoSwitch. It looked really good. Cold corridors and hot corridors to ensure targeted and efficient cooling and separate the various air streams. Moreover, EvoSwitch is huge, and it still has many expansion opportunities. Its being a green data center makes it even more attractive to us.”

• High quality data center
• Good price
• Technical support
• Opportunities to expand
• High availability

Data center facilities for offering SaaS, which are based in EvoSwitch, the CO2 neutral data center. The hosting design was developed by OGD’s experts. LeaseWeb’s engineers monitor the infrastructure 24x7 and offer technical backup for onsite work at the data center.