Car park operator finds space for blade computers

Centralised system will improve availability and customer service at NCP

NCP is introducing blade computers

National Car Parks (NCP) has centralised the systems that manage more than 600 car parks using blade technology to ensure better availability and reduced downtime.

The car park operator has integrated its regional control centres into a nationwide, state-of-the-art control room and customer service centre in Croyden.

The centre employs 16 controllers, who manage all of NCP’s car parks, overseeing security, payment and customer service operations.

The integration of services enables staff to connect to any parking barrier via video and voice feeds to discuss customer enquiries in real time and resolve concerns.

The company says hosting its systems on separate PC blades will ensure 99.9 per cent availability and increased security across its systems.

Five separate and redundant IT infrastructure systems are provided for each control room operator and, in the event of a software or hardware failure, systems can be up and running within five minutes.

Ensuring availability of its systems was the most critical factor in its decision to deliver the best customer service, says NCP technology director Neil Robson.

‘Before the Croydon Operations Centre, NCP operated seven satellite centres around the UK to control its car parks,’ said Robson.

‘The transition to a centralised environment has provided us with a highly adaptable system that gives us 100 per cent systems availability and simplified IT management.’

IT failures can disrupt the level of service provided to customers, Robson says, which is why NCP chose to move to the centralised blade solution.

Vendor ClearCube has installed its Sentral 5.0 management system to form the core of the NCP control room, with the software providing visibility and control of local and remote computing deployments.