Builders merchant Travis Perkins has improved its disaster recovery capability through a complete overhaul of its IT infrastructure.

The company contracted technology supplier Logicalis to integrate two disparate datacentres, following the acquisition of retail chain Wickes. Four 1Gbit/s links now connect the two locations, allowing data to be shared and re-routed across a wide area network.

Before the overhaul, the recovery of Travis Perkins' core servers would take an estimated 36 hours. Under the new arrangement Logicalis guarantees a time of four hours, and in a recent test of the system, business-critical applications were recovered in half that time.

“Much of our infrastructure was nearing end-of-life and we quickly recognised that our expansion rate would require significant change in our datacentre environment," said Travis Perkins IT infrastructre manager Clive Carter.

"Not only had capacity become an issue but, as the company continued to grow, any downtime would even more significantly impact operations and the profitability of the business," he said.

"With the solution now in place, we not only have a datacentre operation that will cope with the company’s continued growth but are experiencing operational improvements and, critically, have a disaster recovery strategy suitable for the size of the business.”