Pizza company looks to support and accelerate rapid online growth with cloud-based managed hosting services

Pizza company looks to support and accelerate rapid online growth with cloud-based managed hosting services

Pizza delivery company Domino’s Pizza has selected Rackspace Hosting to provide RackConnect, an integrated cloud hosting and dedicated managed hosting service.

The provider said its services would give Domino’s a scalable and cost-effective platform to support an ambitious growth strategy. Its online ordering business, launched over a decade ago as part of its multichannel retail strategy, has generated a 63% increase in online revenues alone in 2010.

As one of the largest pizza delivery companies in the UK and Ireland, with over 660 stores, Domino’s was looking for a hosting service to meet the evolving demands of its online business, and allow its internal IT team to focus less on the maintenance of its online properties and business applications, and more on innovation.

Safeguarding growth and customer experience

Colin Rees, Domino’s IT director, said: “In 2010, over a third of our UK delivered orders were taken online, so having a reliable hosting solution is essential to our continued success. I knew that we needed to outsource our hosting infrastructure if we were to remain on our current growth trajectory and keep improving our customer experience. We wanted the best of both worlds, though: the high level of security and configurability that dedicated managed hosting affords a business, and the scalability of cloud hosting. Rackspace’s RackConnect solution ticks all these boxes, and more.”

RackConnect will enable Domino’s to select which applications are placed where in the managed hosting infrastructure. For example, applications that require a high level of security, such as an internal email system, can be hosted on dedicated physical hardware. Domino’s will also be able to take advantage of the on-demand scalability of The Rackspace Cloud for developing new smartphone or tablet applications, or handling the demands of a digital marketing campaign, according to the provider.

Domino’s new hosting platform is expected to go live in September this year. Hosted applications will include the public facing e-commerce site, www.dominos.co.uk, as well as its online payment gateway, corporate email and back-office systems, and the company intranet.