A pan-Nordic entity, SOS International is a leader in the assistance industry, providing much-needed help and care to Nordic travelers worldwide. With locations in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark, SOS International handled approximately 1.2M cases relating to health, travel, and mobility issues in 2021.
In 2020, SOS International decided to outsource the hosting and operations of their data center and central applications to an external Service Provider. SOS International operates round the clock, and their emergency hotline is available 24/7. SOS International had identified a gap between the level of operational maturity in their data center operations and the critical nature of the applications being run from said data center. This necessitated a change, and the decision was taken to outsource the data center to minimize operational risk.
After a thorough selection process, which involved the mapping of the competencies and cultural fit, Trifork Family member Netic A/S was chosen along with another Service Provider for extensive evaluation, which eventually led to Netic being selected as the partner.
Netic was chosen partly due to the technical competencies and level of process maturity surrounding the operations of Netic’s four data centers. Another large part of Netic being selected was Netic’s new data center in Aalborg, Denmark, which is one of the most sustainable and energy-efficient data centers in the Nordic Region.
The main reason for Netic being chosen is that there was – and is – a strong cultural fit between the technical staff at SOS and Netic’s technical consultants.”
How do you move an entire international company’s IT – including applications that mustn’t go offline – from one data center to another? You plan! Luckily, as one of Denmark’s longest-existing service providers, Netic has extensive experience with migrations like these. The project was anchored in Netic’s project management department, assisted with oversight by Netic’s CEO, Steen Jensen.
This provided SOS International with the assurance that the project was in good hands. After the migration, Benny Gårdbo-Pedersen expressed great satisfaction with Netic’s handling of the project:
“Netic has an exceptional ability to reach sensible compromises. We don’t always see eye to eye, and there have been disagreements over both technology and processes still time and time again, Netic has demonstrated that they are willing and able to reach a compromise that can satisfy both parties.”
On Netic’s website, it is boldly stated that Netic sees its relationship with its customers as akin to a marriage. Long-term relationships, where both parties evolve gradually into tying the knot ever tighter. SOS International considers the relationship in much the same way.
“We’re going to insist that whenever Netics has new product offerings, for instance within security or container operations, that these are shown to us. We’re not going to be investing in staying current in these technologies ourselves, so we need an actively evolving relationship with a partner that does this for us.” Benny Gårdbo-Pedersen
Meetings have been scheduled concerning security operations, and other discussions are regularly held.
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