Alviva Holdings Limited, one of Africa’s largest providers of information and communication technology products and services, has outsourced its group IT requirements to Datacentrix.

As part of this agreement Datacentrix manages desktop support (within office hours), network support (on a 24 x 7 basis) and back-end system support, including servers, backups and data centres, for group subsidiaries, across Alviva subsidiaries, incorporating Pinnacle, Centrafin and Axiz.

The project, which spans 17 locations, sees the management of more than 400 desktop machines, over 1,000 laptops, in excess of 60 servers (as well as 317 virtual servers), with the provision of access to a 24-hour professionally managed service desk with guaranteed service levels.

“Previously, the individual businesses were supported using local onsite support staff without a service desk, with each organisation operating their own set of standards. The support effort has been standardised and consolidated to drive up efficiencies by leveraging the scale of the Alviva group,” states Eric Henderson, divisional managing director for Managed Services at Datacentrix.

“With this outsourcing agreement in place, Alviva is now able to closely track service level agreements (SLAs) on a monthly basis, ensuring that services are consistently on track. Each business unit within the group now has a simple, one-click access to dashboards and reporting to obtain an instant infrastructure health check. In addition, cybersecurity concerns are now managed via the industry-leading Datacentrix Security Operations Centre (SOC), which is a 24 x 7 x 365 operation.”

“It made sense for Alviva to move away from a siloed approach and consolidate services, while leveraging Datacentrix’ established infrastructure and experience built over time,” says Pedro Maia, group CIO at Alviva. “This has allowed us to standardise group-level ICT for a more consistent, predicable operation, while at the same time showcasing Datacentrix’ breadth and depth of skill for potential outsource customers,” he concludes.