Lichfield, 21 January 2013 - NextiraOne UK, part of Europe's leading expert in communications services, today announced that it has been designated a FlexPod Premium Partner by Cisco and NetApp to provide solutions and services supporting the FlexPod data centre solution. As a FlexPod Premium Partner, NextiraOne is recognised for its advanced competencies in supporting customers as a trusted adviser in deploying FlexPod solutions.

"This announcement follows our recent successes in achieving Cisco Cloud Builder and Data Centre Infrastructure designations and VMware Enterprise Partner," commented Geraint Davies, Head of Data Centre Business at NextiraOne UK. "The addition of FlexPod Premium Partner to NextiraOne's badges of excellence adds further capability to our growing expertise in delivering comprehensive and advanced Data Centre solutions for our customers."

FlexPod is a pretested and validated solution that combines networking, computing, and storage in a shared infrastructure and supports multiple applications and workloads to help customers accelerate and simplify their transition to the cloud.

As a channel partner of Cisco and NetApp, NextiraOne will be able to assist customers with implementing and configuring virtualised data centre solutions based on the validated FlexPod shared infrastructure, as well as help customers develop and adhere to best practices for building and managing best-in-class solutions from Cisco and NetApp. The flexible, scalable shared infrastructure is pretested to lower deployment risk, increase data centre efficiencies, and create a flexible information technology (IT) environment to build a private cloud.

NextiraOne is a long-standing partner of Cisco, NetApp and VMware and delivers powerful Data Centre solutions for a wide range of customers in the public and private sector, including Howdens Joinery, legal services firm Blake Lapthorn and North Bristol and James Paget NHS Trusts.

Geraint Davies added: "Achieving FlexPod Premium Partner status adds further accreditation to our growing armoury of Data Centre expertise. Combining this with our existing Cisco, NetApp and VMware strengths gives us a powerful Next Generation Data Centre offering for our customers. It is further proof of the success of our strategic partnerships with the world's leading Data Centre technology providers. Our extensive range of services supports our customers throughout their Data Centre transformation, from requirement assessments to design and deployment, to a full range of Managed Services that are unequalled in the market today."

[NextiraOne will be demonstrating this and other leading technologies at the forthcoming Cisco Live! 2013 event at the Excel Centre in London, between 28th January and 1st February 2013.]

Cisco and NetApp's FlexPod is a validated shared infrastructure that features the Cisco UCS® server, Cisco network switches, NetApp® unified storage systems running on Data ONTAP® software. The design architecture has been jointly tested and validated as a Cisco Validated Design, so NextiraOne can quickly assess customer needs and deploy integrated solutions from Cisco and NetApp that meet the stringent requirements of their dynamic data centres.

ENDS

About NextiraOne
NextiraOne is a European multinational company that designs, installs, maintains and supports business solutions and communications services for over 60,000 private and public sector customers. Using its expertise in leading-edge communications, including data centres, contact centres, unified communications, secure network infrastructures and managed services, NextiraOne helps its customers to transform their organisations, making the complex simple.

Headquartered in Paris, NextiraOne has a direct sales and service presence in 16 countries with more than 4,300 employees across Europe, including 2,500 qualified service experts, and an annual revenue totalling around one billion euros in 2010.

Discover more at: http://www.nextiraone.eu/uk

*NextiraOne and the NextiraOne logo are registered trademarks of NextiraOne LLC

For more information:
Sheila Lashford
Proactive International PR
Tel.: +44 (0) 1636 812152
sheila.lashford@proactive-pr.com

Ellis Irwin
Proactive International PR
Tel.: +44 (0) 1636 812152
ellis.irwin@proactive-pr.com