Stockbroker invests in data hosting

Private client stockbroker Brewin Dolphin has signed up Atos Origin to host its primary data centre as part of a multimillion pound infrastructure upgrade.

The move was driven in part by rising property costs in the City of London but also by the events of 7 July, 2005.

Brewin Dolphin manages the stock market investments of 130,000 individuals totalling £21bn from 37 offices around the UK, supported by a main data centre in London and a back-up site in Edinburgh. Last year the board decided to move its head office out of London prompted by its leasing arrangements coming up for renewal there. It was also concerned about data security.

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Brewin Dolphin head of information services, Neil Bath, said: "On 7 July two years ago the G8 summit in Edinburgh was the scene of big protests. Our data centre staff there were already on a disaster recovery setting, then the bombs started going off in London. This was one consideration when we reviewed our data centres but the need to move property was our primary driver."

The company now uses a specially designed hosted data centre, described by Bath as a highly secure environment. Alongside this contract, Bath has also upgraded the company's server infrastructure and implemented an SAN architecture at the hosted site. He has also implemented a VoIP rollout.

He said: "This business is highly IT dependent. I need to have a resilient infrastructure on which to run the applications our fund managers need to do their jobs."