Trinity Mirror

Benefits of the solution from Vialtus Solutions include:

• Flexibility to continually expand the hosting platform when required.
• A secure and reliable service.
• Dedicated support from specialist Account and Engineering Teams.
• A tailored and customised package for maximum efficiency and control.

READ ALL ABOUT IT
Trinity Mirror is one of the most recognised media brands in the country. With over 200 regional titles and five national newspapers, 40 per cent of the UK population will read at least one Trinity Mirror paper every week. Trinity Mirror boasts The Daily Mirror, one of the UK’s most famous national newspapers, among its titles.

IMPROVING COST EFFICIENCY
“We were originally looking at ways to improve the cost efficiency of our IT systems,” explains Ian Castleton, IT Project Manager at Trinity Mirror. “One of the key areas we looked at was the hosting of our web and database servers. We needed to find a reputable company that could provide us with a quality hosting solution at a reasonable price.” ”We opted to go with Vialtus, as it was offering to provide us with a customised package at a competitive price. The team at Vialtus was also able to get the solution in place and up and running quickly, with minimal disruption to us and our customers.” The bespoke solution provided by Vialtus includes managed Oracle hosting, connectivity and supported web and e-mail servers. Castleton continues, “Vialtus built a new hosting platform when we moved all of our web applications over to its Manchester data centre. This was good news for Trinity Mirror as we were able to get a new Linux platform with modern HP servers.” “Vialtus provides us with strong Oracle support. The team knows the database and set-up inside out, and it is monitored 24/7, which is vital for our operations,” adds Castleton. “The system we have in place works well for us. We are able to control the web applications that we run, but at the same time we have the support of an experienced account team and knowledgeable Vialtus engineering staff should any problems occur.”

PLUS POINTS
“The key benefit of the Vialtus solution to us is that it is specifically customised to fit our exact requirements,” adds Castleton. “The flexibility aspect is also important, as we are able to expand the platform as and when we need to”. “Vialtus gives us the capacity to exceed 200Mbps, but normally during the week bandwidth peaks at around 150Mbps,” Castleton. With the number of websites and visitors that Trinity Mirror has, downtime is not an option. “Reliability of our sites is crucial. Since implementing the Vialtus solution, we have experienced a minimum of downtime, which is fantastic. Vialtus has a streamlined and effective process for notifying us of any problems, so we are always kept updated and any issues are resolved as soon as possible,” adds Castleton.

UPGRADING THE SOLUTION
In the last 12 months alone, Trinity Mirror have added an additional Oracle database cluster and have increased the number of web servers to provide separate hosting platforms for the national and regional newspaper websites. Castleton explains, “This has more than doubled the capacity of these platforms, and we are now serving twice as many pages per month as we were a year ago. “We have also recently added a dedicated blog, discussion forum and multi-media servers, a platform for our general classified advertising websites, and another for our online advertising booking websites.” “Vialtus has provided project management for these platforms, allowing us to build and launch them on time, to budget and with minimum disruption for our online customers,” says Castleton. “Continuity is vital for Trinity Mirror, and the support we get from Vialtus ensures that all of the sites are running smoothly on a day to day basis.”

LOOKING AHEAD
“Our platform is continually expanding and our next project will be working with Vialtus to build a further dedicated platform consisting of a database cluster and web servers for our jobs, motors and property classified websites. We also intend to add additional servers to expand the capacity of our newspaper website platforms,” concludes Castleton.