RAC extends 'infrastructure-as-a-service' cloud contract

Automated service desk allows RAC to better serve customers

RAC, the British motor services company, has extended its contract with IT services group Getronics to provide Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) for the benefit of its eight million members.

The extended contract will see Getronics provide RAC with IaaS to support the website, disaster recovery services and cloud services via Getronics' private cloud.

RAC has extended the Getronics contract following what's described as a successful partnership that has been ongoing since 2011. The project was deemed a success thanks to positive feedback, so RAC opted to continue the relationship

"We are extremely pleased with Getronics' proactive approach, delivering innovative thinking whilst ensuring that our joint projects stay on course, on time and to budget," said Steve Goodwin, CIO at RAC.

"Getronics has delivered a highly agile solution which enables us to be nimble and flexible in what is a highly demanding, competitive and time-pressured industry," he said. "We look forward to what the future holds with Getronics and to working together to ensure we achieve our business goals."

RAC experiences far more call-outs for car repair in the winter than it does in the summer, so the new "on demand" deal allows it to expand its IT infrastructure as and when needed to meet customer demand.

The company's service desk is now delivered via three tiers according to customer demand. The automated back-end infrastructure has resulted in service desk costs being greatly reduced, and improved the ability to scale up or down in line with requirements.

Mark Cook, CEO of Getronics, welcomed the continued partnership with RAC.

"We are thrilled to be working with the RAC for another five years and are excited to see how we can help the business develop going forwards," he said.

The financial details of the new contract, which will run until 2020, haven't been disclosed.

While RAC has embraced the cloud, the same can't be said for smaller organisations. A recent study suggested small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK are rejecting cloud as their primary storage platform and are even questioning how it might be useful to them.