Indra Sistemas S.A. is a long-established Spanish multinational IT solutions and consultancy provider with activities in the automation, defence and Space industries. It offers data centre consultancy and physical services, bespoke systems and cloud services to large businesses and public organisations.
Data centre consultancy from Indra covers the whole spectrum of services, from specifying requirements to building the data centre and designing its network infrastructure. Physical data centre services are mainly based around the cloud and traditional housing and hosting is being pushed out in favour of cloud-based models.
Indras flagship service is Flex-IT, an on demand, flexible cloud delivery service based within Indras own private cloud. It allows businesses to manage their IT applications and infrastructure from anywhere and at any time. This gives businesses enterprise-level infrastructure and management options at a fraction of the price of in-house systems or standard colocation, all served via Indras high security data centres.
Location
Indra is based in Spain and operates more than 80 offices around the country. It also has presence around the world in 47 countries across the US, Latin America, Africa, Europe, Middle East and Asia.
It owns four data centres in Spain – San Fernando de Henares, USO Indra Anabel Segura, Telémaco and the companys headquarters in Arroyo de la Vega.
The newer carrier neutral, tier III level data centre at San Fernando de Henares (Madrid) consolidates all of Indras services across the other three data centres. It was built to state-of-the-art specifications in order to support Indras cloud expansion strategy and covers an area of over 5000sqm. Uptime is 99.98%, and the centre was awarded ISO27001 for information security. It offers N+1 redundancy over power, network carriers and cooling, two separate power feeds from two substations, diesel generators and the latest intruder detection and fire detection technologies.
Energy
Indras energy and sustainability policy is to invest in technologies that minimise energy use, obtain energy efficiency certifications for its data centres and improve management and systems. Its commitment to sustainability, amongst other things, has kept it on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for 8 years running. Indra also offers advice on sustainability to clients in the energy and other industries through its consulting service.
Funding/business model
Indra Sistema S.A. is a public limited company that is listed on all four main boards of the Spanish stock exchange. It has no one controlling shareholder and the bulk of the shares (54%) are spilt between a range of investment funds, telecoms companies and public investment companies from different countries. It has numerous subsidiaries, many of which were originally acquisitions.
The company is currently undergoing a major business restructure in order to improve efficiency, competitiveness and profit. The move was sparked by a loss of over EUR 92 million in 2014 and further losses in the first quarter of 2015. It currently employs more than 39,000 people globally and over 21,000 in Spain and has a turnover of around EUR 3 billion.
Indras goal is to become a major multinational IT provider and consultancy. It seeks to capitalise on growing demand for its services whilst at the same time streamlining the business in order to remain competitive through cost-cutting and service efficiencies.
Customers and partners
Indra counts some of the worlds most important organisations amongst its clients. The European Space Agency (ESA) chose Indras high security San Fernando de Henares to host the satellite images from Sentinel 2A and sister satellite Sentinel 2B a contract which lasts until 2020. San Fernando also hosts international energy companies, airlines and major financial institutions.
In 2013 it won a major contract in Malaysia to design and deliver a complete data centre based control centre for a large section of Malaysias light rail section and in 2014 won the Transport for London contract for a tunnel control centre. Indra is also regularly awarded public contracts and funding for IT infrastructure, research and design services and one of the main awarding bodies is the European Commission.
Major technology partners to Indras data centre division include BMC, Cisco, Citrix, Microsoft and many more. Its recent partnership with SAP resulted in the first specialised module-based SAP system for the hotel industry Travel Management Suite.
A major global player with extensive expertise
Indra is a serious global player in the IT consultancy industry, although its data centre services are just a small part of its overall offer.
Indras move away from physical colocation services is part of its overall expansion strategy. It probably wont appeal to smaller companies and those who prefer traditional data centre set-ups. It is, however, a great choice for larger businesses and organisations that require a more tailored package of services, and who will find themselves in good company amongst an impressive list of fellow clients.