We recently sat down with Andris Gailitis, the CEO at DEAC, to talk a bit about DEAC’s business in Northern Europe. We asked what makes them unique and different, and how DEAC has navigated through the Covid-19 pandemic. As expected, Andris’ perspective was insightful and valuable for those interested in or currently using external data centers.
Q: Tell us a little about your business.
A: DEAC is one of the largest data center operators in Northern Europe with several data center locations. Strategic location between the East and the West as well as cultural background provides perfect competitive advantage. We provide customized IT solutions that are developed according to customers’ business needs, required capacity, data volume and software, as well as we are able to quickly adapt required resources.
Our core business is data processing and storage in data centers. As a full service data center operator with highly qualified personnel, DEAC provides wide range of IT solutions – cloud services (virtualization), dedicated server rental, equipment colocation, network solutions, software as a service, data security solutions, IT support and experts’ consultations. You can learn more about us here.
Q: How current situation with Covid-19 pandemic affects your business and customers?
A: These times are certainly not easy for many businesses all over the world. Though I have to admit that since day one, we have managed to smoothly transition to work from home mode for most of our employees, delivering the same quality of our services as if we would be in the office. Even for those, who need to be on the frontlines, we have provided the required safety conditions.
Our customers have continued their work remotely as well, as they have already prepared for potential crises on time. For those, who had not been used to working remote, our services were in high demand. However, we have quickly managed to ensure their secure work from home using VPN, remote desktop, communication and file exchange platforms.
As it is said, the world will never be the same after pandemic. So far, Latvia and Baltic countries in general are less risky and actually among the safest regions in EU as we have one of the lowest numbers of illnesses, which is thanks to the fast crisis response. For sure, it is already leaving its heavy footprints on the business climate, and IT sector is not an exception. As businesses have tough times, they also cut on their IT infrastructure spending, so we adapt to new normal by offering our customers the most cost-effective and scalable solutions and satisfying their changing needs.
Q: What markets do you serve?
A: We serve customers from more than 40 countries all over the world from several data centers’ locations around Europe – Riga, Moscow, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Stockholm, London and Kiev. 70% of our business consists of work with export markets. One of the major export markets for us is Russia.
Q: Could you highlight the latest trends in markets that you serve?
A: With business risks on the rise, including cybersecurity threats, we see a surge of demand towards security solutions. What we recommend our customers is to look at their sensitive data and IT security more complex and prevent potential downtimes before they actually happen. The best option for business continuity is to maintain disaster recovery plan, which includes not only backup site, but also internal trainings of the personnel as human factor is considered to be among the highest risks.
Medium and large enterprises, whose IT infrastructure is scattered in various locations of global public cloud providers, are currently in search of hybrid cloud environments with more predictable and transparent costs, while still ensuring high level of security. Our experts’ can help with fast and smooth migration process. At the same time, customers can benefit from an individual approach of personal project manager, which will not be the case with big cloud providers.
As to other trends, we have noticed interest towards new solutions with Kubernetes and object-based storage. As usual upon request, we dig into new technologies and provide our customers with tailor-made IT solutions according to their needs.
Q: What makes you different from other solutions?
A: As a regional data centers’ market player we focus on individual approach to our customers by building complex tailor-made IT solutions according to their requirements and providing private manager to get the necessary level of support whenever they need it. We call it Private Data Centers concept, which is similar to the principles of Private banking, when you get the appropriate care and security for your data. We are your private data bankers.
On the other hand, what differs us from global cloud providers is the fact that we are completely transparent in terms of our pricing policy, without any hidden costs or terms, which means that at the start a global provider may look more cost-appealing, but with the growing amounts of data it may turn out vice versus. In fact, we are flexible to customers’ requirements both in terms of cost optimization and in terms of cloud scalability. Learn more about key benefits of one reliable IT provider in this video:
Q: You’ve been in business now for 20+ years, how has that experience helped you grow and better serve your customers?
A: Our long-term experience has helped us to grow not only in terms of customers from various countries but also to expand our data centers’ locations. We have opened several virtual data centers in Moscow and Frankfurt and have maintained points of presence in Amsterdam, Stockholm, London and Kiev for the benefit of our customers’ backup locations. We plan to expand our own two data centers in Riga by opening the third one in coming years.
This year we have launched Internet Exchange (IX) connecting all our location with major network providers’ ecosystem. IX provides better connectivity to let businesses in Europe, Baltic States and Russia switch to global networks.
Meanwhile, our certified IT specialists with long-term experience serve customers with individual IT solutions and provide in-depth consultations and IT audit services.
Q: Your website looks good – have you found that it helps with sales and clients services?
A: Sure, it helps to attract new customers and keep key stakeholders aware about our latest news, solutions and IT trends. We do our best to stay informative and provide enough data and analysis to make a well-thought decision on their IT needs. To follow our blog and get valuable information you can subscribe to our newsletter or follow us on social media: