Colleges signs ‘one-stop shop’ IT deal with Calyx

Calyx has signed a £3m four-year contract to supply Colleges Northern Ireland (CNI) with managed services and a technology refresh across 47 College campuses.

Services range from centrally hosted applications to on-site systems, wrapped in a managed service. Also, part of the contract was a hardware refresh and a move to a virtualised server platform in a centralised datacentre.

“The deal is one of our most significant in Northern Ireland, highlighting how the breadth and scope of Calyx enables us to become trusted partners to organisations with diverse and complex needs,” says Andrew Miller, head of enterprise sales, Calyx Group.

At the core of the Calyx solution is a combination of Citrix Xen Desktop and VMware vSphere in a virtualised datacentre that hosts Agresso, the college’s ERP system. New Dell Servers and a SAN solution for the primary and disaster recovery site will also be deployed.

Calyx will also manage the existing infrastructure that runs the local HR, administration and critical student applications. Support and Service Level Agreements were important components of the deal, with Calyx providing a helpdesk for all aspects of the service, managed services and break/fix for every site.