Law firm signs £5.5m outsourcing deal

One of the world's largest law firms has signed a £5.5m deal with service provider Savvis to manage its networks.

Under the five-year contract, Allen and Overy, which has 4,800 employees in 25 countries, will outsource networks and IT infrastructure to the company. It will handle document management, data transfers, accounting and email.

The company previously kept its data-centre in the basement of its London HQ but following a move to a new location decided to outsource the job.

Dave Burwell, IT director of Allen and Overy, told silicon.com: "We decided to do that because we wanted to move our data centre away from risk and wanted a high-availability network.

"We can't afford to have loss of service through air con failure or power. By the very nature of our business, we have very strict requirements with regard to the security, reliability and international reach of our hosting provider."

Savvis, which also runs much of Wall Street's networking, is hosting 400 servers in more than 100 racks.