Colt : Your core network tests professional posture

London Marathon tests personal fitness.
Your core network tests professional posture.
Back pains reveal any weaknesses.

When the pressure is on to perform, when there is nowhere to hide, breakdowns are bad news. You knew it would be a long haul, you weren't planning for a sprint finish, but time just ran away and, just at a critical moment . . . overload. How many people think of the consequences when they download a video, run a cloud application or send a vital email?

Not many, perhaps, but if you're the person responsible for a core network of any kind, you will be acutely aware of the back strain. Just like electricity grid managers ready for millions of kettles powering up in the ad-break, you need a network with the backbone to cope with peak demand. You need to adapt quickly to challenges or opportunities. You need the stamina and backbone to keep on performing

As enterprise computing moves to 'the cloud' the demand growth for bandwidth capacity is exponential and, being aggregated, it is increasing in your network core faster and more-critically than anywhere else. Cisco forecast that traffic between data centres is increasing by 29% every year, whilst industry analysts Ovum see the growth in services at 1Gbps and above exceeding 18%.

That network traffic is the sum of all your enterprise activity. The individual employee or customer may only be concerned for safe and timely delivery of their immediate needs. But if you're a carrier, an operator, a cloud provider or a major enterprise, you need fat pipes to connect all your business locations and demand-sources to the core infrastructure. You need a responsive, high performance backbone network to carry the traffic to its onward destination.

Even when today's capacity requirements have been met, you will have other concerns. You will need a clear upgrade path to higher bandwidths. You will need to respond to opportunities quickly across a wide range of locations. You will need extensive resilience options to meet business continuity needs. You will need to empower customers - balancing cost efficiency with performance and risk. You will know that security and the management of risk are paramount. Your businesses and partners will need a trusted supplier with a proven track record and reputable brand.

And seriously, when you need backbone performance above 1Gb/s, or even 100Gb/s, Colt is Europe's leading Ethernet brand

• Services are delivered on optical Ethernet and wavelength technologies
• Our wavelength services are trusted by leading cloud providers, major enterprises and carriers
• Over 585 directly connected data centres - more than any other European provider according to independent analyst Telegeography
• Over 24,000 connected buildings across Europe
• Redundant network architecture and wide-ranging options for resilience and service diversity

Colt is a strategic partner with both the stamina for the high-bandwidth long haul and for the unexpected sprint. And no need to call on the physio.