Image Source - The Bigger Picture

Image Source is the world’s leading independent producer and brand for creative and commercial royalty free stock photography, supplying images to creative professionals based around the world through imagesource.com. Users can search through the entire collection online to purchase and download instantly from thousands of individual images or hundreds of themed disc titles. Image Source has an international client base with offices in the UK, Germany and the USA.

Download as PDF

The Challenges

Image Source stores over eight Terabytes of data which has to be available 24/7. Clients are members of the public and creative professionals needing rapid search and download facilities from a reliable stock image provider. Previously, Image Source maintained co-location facilities, running and maintaining their own hardware in a third-party datacentre.

Our intensive hosting requirements placed a strain on our hardware, which in turn was straining our IT support staff, Staff had to run from our office to the datacentre to maintain, reset or replace servers when something went wrong. It was too much of a strain on resources to continue. Jonathan Biggington, IT Manager at Image Source

The Solution

Claranet worked with Image Source to design and implement an appropriate, scalable and resilient infrastructure. The installation process had to be completed within 20 working days to enable configuration and testing of the server before the system went live on the new site. "Through the consultation process, Claranet identified the requirements of the new Image Source solution," explains David Mitchell. "Our technical expertise allowed us to select cutting-edge hardware and create a hosting solution that could cope with the demands of Image Source customers."

The Result

"The switch to Claranet was a long-term investment for Image Source," says Jonathan Biggington. "It has dramatically reduced the amount of time our IT and support teams spend dealing with server issues." Since implementing the system, Claranet have co-operated closely with Image Source to ensure a smooth transition to a managed solution." "Customers should find that using the system is noticeably smoother," says David Mitchell. "From Image Source’s point of view, the management is far easier as well."