In January 2009, Gradwell experienced an IT system failure that caused a five-hour service disruption during peak hours. This incident made the company realize that its IT systems urgently needed an upgrade to meet both current and future needs.
HP was selected to build a reliable and cost-effective hosting platform that could adapt to changing needs. The new platform included the deployment of HP BladeSystem technology with HP ProLiant BL490c G6 servers and HP Virtual Connect Flex-10, and the replacement of Gradwell's third-party storage with an HP P4000 SAN solution.
“HP offered the best product on the market, along with a strong technical and sales commitment, and an affordable solution,” said Peter Gradwell, founder and CEO of Gradwell. “But most importantly, the implementation of this technology has generated increased confidence among our customers.”.
Customer confidence, which had declined following the IT failure, returned after the development of this new platform, reflected in a 29% increase in monthly call revenue. System availability has been 100% every month since the new HP infrastructure was installed, which consolidated eight racks into five and significantly reduced monthly energy costs.
Performance has also improved with the HP P4000 SAN, increasing throughput from over ten to 70 megabytes per second. This allows Gradwell to benefit from reporting capabilities that display utilization, performance, and other statistics, facilitating the ability to plan and quickly identify potential problems.
With the new platform, Gradwell has also been able to reduce the costs of "locating and troubleshooting" while freeing up employee time so they can perform more important tasks, reducing costs and increasing revenue.
“Gradwell needed to maximize uptime and minimize costs to give its customers a competitive edge in internet telephony,” said Christian Keller, vice president, Industry Standard Server Business – Europe, Middle East and Africa, HP. “HP provides a flexible, converged infrastructure that reduces costs and consumption while freeing up business resources.”.
According to data from Bath, Gradwell serves 18,000 customers and handles 6 million minutes of incoming and outgoing calls per month.

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