Case Studies

Macmillan Cancer Support reduces costs with NetShelter CX server cabinets

Macmillan Cancer Support (www.macmillan.org.uk) is one of the UK's leading charities, with an annual income of over £120 million, and around 60 offices around the country.

Like many organizations, Macmillan needed to relocate. This happened recently for them when moving into a new location in St Neots, Cambridgeshire.

The charity's new office was open plan, and had no space designated as a server or computer room. It wanted to put in IP technology, and needed a place to house a communications cabinet, switches, a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) and other network hardware.

"As the office was open plan, we had noise problems, and needed to find a cost-effective solution," said Ian Humphreys, ICT Infrastructure Project Manager at Macmillan Cancer Support.

Humphreys decided to use NetShelter CX server cabinets for the deployment of servers and network hardware directly in the office workspace, removing the need for server rooms. In typical usage, the cabinets reduce server noise by up to 83%, CO2 emissions by 96.5%, floor space by 90%, operating costs by 98%, and capital costs by up to 80%, when compared to a server room.

For Macmillan, Kell donated a AR4018 server cabinet, which meant that Macmillan can put its network equipment in the main office without building a dedicated computer room.

"While the Kell cabinet was donated, we compared how much it would have costed versus the alternatives, and the cabinet would have been cheaper than the air conditioning alone – before we even started to factor in computer room building and maintenance costs," said Humphreys.

"Installation was also much cheaper and easier than if we'd had a separate server room, which would have required terminating cables in the server room and then cables to be run from there to the PCs in the office."

"There's no noticeable heat or noise from the cabinet, and it look like an attractive piece of furniture," said Humphreys. "I've had nothing but positive feedback from the staff."

Another advantage is simplified maintenance, as Humphreys explained: "If we have to go there and do any work on the systems, then access is easy, as the NetShelter CX cabinet is on wheels – that’s a great benefit as other fixed cabinets aren’t so straightforward. Build quality and functionality of the cabinet are impressive, and installing our equipment was simple – we just slotted things in."

"Many of our office leases are running out, and a lot of the new properties coming up that we are looking at don't seem to have server rooms, as they are newer offices that are all open plan,” said Humphreys.  "When we need to put any servers or network devices in another office, we will consider NetShelter CX cabinets first."

Download Macmillan Cancer Care Case Study