Glasgow's Iomart powers up connections with seven-figure investment

Iomart, the Glasgow-headquartered cloud computing group, has made a seven-figure investment in “next generation” technology that will allow its customers to benefit from faster connections.

Iomart chief executive Reece Donovan in one the company's data centres. Picture: Peter Devlin

The major network expansion has seen the firm invest nearly £2 million in core routing technology from Cisco. It will provide 100GB capacity on its network with the ability to scale to 400GB.

Capacity will increase from 10GB to 100GB through two of the most interconnected “peering” facilities in Europe – Telehouse London and Equinix in Slough – and through Iomart’s largest data centre, in Maidenhead.

The firm said the latest investment followed a “noticeable increase generally in internet traffic due to Covid-19”. Iomart is also increasing resiliency for customers in its key data centres with the addition of extra fibre routes.

Chief executive Reece Donovan said: “This is a significant investment that supports our growth strategy and underlines our commitment to provide businesses with the services they need to support their future operations. The investment ensures our customers will have the ability to deliver content and services faster than ever and without disruption.”

Ishbell MacPhail, regional leader, Cisco, added: “In the last year, connected technologies and applications have played a major role and helped to solve unexpected challenges in all industries – from home schooling to healthcare. Iomart’s focus on reliability and speed will see them continue to play a key role in a new, connected normal. We’re delighted to be working with them.”

In January, it emerged that Iomart was supporting a technology transformation for the National Lottery Community Fund, enabling hundreds of staff to deliver vital financial support during the pandemic.

The fund is one of the non-departmental public bodies responsible for distributing lottery funding to good causes and is the largest funder of communities in the UK.

Iomart’s consultancy team has spent the past three years working with the fund’s director of technology and data, Matthew Green, on a key project to redefine its technology and infrastructure.

The value of the overhaul became acutely apparent as the Covid-19 crisis began. By the time the first nationwide lockdown was announced last March, the fund’s 850 employees were already working from home.

Staff were able to collaborate online, sending and receiving in excess of four million emails and holding almost 1,000 calls and meetings every day.

In December, Iomart said it was seeing business confidence begin to return after reporting a “resilient” first-half performance.

Donovan, who took the reins from long-serving chief executive Angus MacSween, said new business discussions had gathered momentum, pointing to improved confidence in longer-term IT and digital transformation projects.

The latest results showed revenues nudging up 2 per cent, year-on-year, to £56.3m in the six months to the end of September. The firm, which has some 400 staff, benefited from strong levels of recurring revenues, accounting for 90 per cent of the total, up from 87 per cent previously.

Profit before tax was down 29 per cent at £6m, though adjusted underlying earnings held up at £20.8m, a fall of just 4 per cent.

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