Trinity Mirror updates web hosting platform

The UK’s largest newspaper publisher Trinity Mirror has implemented a web hosting platform to cut costs and manage its eight million users a month.

It appointed Pipex to provide managed Oracle hosting, web and email servers to support its range of high volume regional and national web sites.

IT project manager Ian Castleton says it offers flexibility to expand the platform, a secure and reliable service and tailored to its needs.

‘We were looking at ways to improve the cost efficiency of our IT systems and one of the key areas we looked at was the hosting of our web and database servers.

‘Pipex built a new hosting platform when we moved all our hosting applications over to its Manchester data centre. This was good news as we were able to get an updated system, along with a new Linux platform.’

Castleton says Trinity Mirror is able to control the web applications it runs, but has the support of Pipex at any time of the day. This is vital as web sites are a key part of Trinity Mirror’s business.

‘With over eight million unique users every month, weneed high bandwidth which is both reliable and flexible,’ he said. ‘Pipex gives us the capacity to go up to 100Mbps, but normally during the week it peaks at around 60Mbps.’

The sports division of Trinity Mirror also has a range of web sites, including online betting and football sites.

‘The hosting solution means a combined platform is in place so that bandwidth and firewalls are shared between the main newspaper sites and the sports division,’ he added. ‘This allows all of the key sites to be monitored, and ensures there is enough bandwidth for the most popular sites.’

Trinity Mirror has more than 240 regional titles, five nationals and four sports papers, as well as several other sports publications and online brands.

‘The key benefit is that it is specifically customised to exactly fit our requirements,’ Castleton added. ‘The flexibility aspect is also important, as we are able to expand the platform as and when we need to, or the bandwidth has the capacity to increase if we have a high number of visitors to the site.’

The company is working with Pipex to split the regional and national sites so that each has dedicated servers.

What do yu think? Email us at feedback@computing.co.uk

Further reading

The Scotsman gets real-time tracking

Newspaper group overhauls its network

Electronic ordering to cut WHSmith’s costs