Category: News

As Northern Ireland’s first purpose-built, commercial carrier neutral data centre, Prescient Data Centres provide colocation, connectivity and other data-centre solutions to local, national and international clients. Based in Coleraine, which is just a one-hour drive from Belfast, Prescient Data Centres is known for being a safe and secure space for businesses to store their data and equipment.

Prescient Data Centres are empowering Northern Ireland’s growth in the digital economy and connecting providers of global IT Services, cloud and content delivery solutions. With ultra-low latency networks to North America and mainland Europe, Prescient provides the ideal platform for our clients who need the ultimate global connectivity solution paired with reliability, security and energy efficiency.    

AG Paving & Building Supplies (AG), a £30m turnover company with 8 sites across the UK, was established 60 years ago. The company is a renowned and respected designer, developer, manufacturer and distributor of best-in-class walling, paving and facing brick for the commercial and domestic markets across the UK and Ireland. With over 220 employees, and more than 10,000 customers, AG is a well-known business across the UK and Ireland.  

Why did AG choose to store their data at Prescient Data Centres?  

AG migrated their data to Prescient Data Centres in 2019 as they were seeking a reliable location that could store their servers and provide a hardware upgrade, making them one of the first clients to migrate their data to our data centre in Coleraine.  

Due to the nature of the company’s data infrastructure, AG opted to seek out a local data centre which met all of their stringent requirements around performance, reliability and resilience and used the migration as an opportunity to refresh their hardware. AG were reassured by the high level of security at the data centre and its purpose-built spec including state-of-the-art systems for cooling and power supply. 

The Head of IT at AG, Ethan Allen, explained that “Prescient Data Centres have made it easier for the company to store our data and has alleviated any worries which the company previously had surrounding our data storage.”  

“For security and continuity, we wanted to store our data off-site, and the location of the data centre was beneficial for AG. We wouldn’t have been as comfortable with our data being stored in mainland UK, an ocean away from our headquarters, if there were any issues we would need to attend to urgently. We were also happy to find a data centre not located in a city like London or Belfast because it meant access and parking when on-site were actually easier.” Prescient Data Centres offers ample space for customers including dedicated on-site build rooms, secure load-in bays, and a generous, highly-secure carpark. 

What are the benefits of working with Prescient Data Centre? 

Commenting on AG’s working relationship with Prescient, Ethan Allen added, “This is our fourth year working with Prescient and we have had no issues with our data storage. Previously, we would have had regular issues and outages. It would have been unthinkable to say we have not had one outage or failure in our time at Prescient four years ago, so this has been a huge benefit for us as a company. We find it very reassuring that the team is on-site to support requirements if needed and can provide access to third parties for network purposes and engineering tasks.”  

Furthermore, Prescient Data Centres provide the opportunity for clients to interact with one another, providing networking opportunities and a collaborative community through our co-working spaces and personalized approach to client relationships. 

Commenting on the ongoing partnership with AG, Chris Boorman, Business Development Manager at Prescient Data Centres said, “As the Digital Causeway for businesses of all sizes and sectors, Prescient provide the right high availability environment to leverage AI and ICT technologies by connecting them reliably to markets across the world wide web to win new customers with the fastest speeds. This empowers Northern Ireland’s growth in the digital economy, to capitalise in AI, Cloud, Global IT Services and content delivery. We are looking forward to continuing our partnership with AG and providing assurances surrounding their IT equipment and data storage! “ 

This inaugural Digital Business Ideation, which was hosted by Prescient Data Centres and expertly facilitated by Professor Daniel Broby from Ulster University Business School in collaboration with Causeway Connections took place last month and aimed to develop an understanding of and start to improve the digital economy and boost the North Coast’s economy. It also aimed to work with students at Ulster University on the Enterprise Placement Programme, connecting students and business leaders in a unique mentoring scheme.

As Northern Ireland businesses gear up to navigate an uncertain 2023, Northern Ireland’s only purpose-built data centre, Prescient Data Centres, have doubled-down on their commitment to providing an energy-efficient, carrier neutral data centre facility which offers flexible solutions for enterprises of all sizes and requirements. 

An increasing number of businesses are shifting their operations from in-house server rooms to colocation or data centre facilities. Colocation is the practice of housing privately-owned servers and networking equipment in a third-party data centre. It gives a business the opportunity to house servers on a site that provides the infrastructure and physical security to keep its deployment secure and operational all year round. The list of benefits involved with data centre colocation is an extensive one, but here are the top five…