Flexible scalability for effortless growth

Challenge

Scalable storage to support new business opportunities

As a company that provides CMS, print, and website solutions, PROLIST’s existing infrastructure was struggling to keep up with demand. With the recent real estate industry boom, they decided it was time to upgrade to a scalable, more cost-effective solution.

On top of keeping up with existing customer demands, PROLIST had opportunities to onboard new, big clients. To do this, they needed a cloud infrastructure solution that could be quickly scaled up to accommodate this new business and scaled back if demand decreased during quieter periods. On their existing private cloud platform they had to purchase more capacity in bulk when demands grew which was causing unnecessary costs for the business.

We needed scalability and reliable support to help us meet our growing customer demands and win new big business opportunities. We’ve been working with Servers Australia^® for three years now and have been impressed with their solutions and response time. So once they demonstrated they had the storage solution we needed, choosing their experts for the upgrade was a no-brainer. We didn’t really consider using another provider.

Objectives

Flexibility for a rapidly changing industry

As the company was facing major growth, the primary goal of PROLIST’s upgrade was to provide the foundation to support this. They had five key requirements to ensure the solution met this goal:

• Effortless scalability

• Uncompromising security and backups

• Reliable support

• Cost-effective setup

• Simple management

Solution

A Virtual Data Centre backed by powerful VMware technology

Featuring rapid scalability and high availability, Servers Australia^® implemented a virtual data centre solution using cutting-edge VMware Cloud Infrastructure. As well as providing the flexibility PROLIST needed to support their growth, the solution also features automated performance and capacity optimisation to reduce costs, automated backups, and centralised management.

We had the opportunity to bring on some big business, but our storage solution was going to make this a huge struggle. With a reliable partner and modern technology, we can pursue these types of opportunities with confidence and better support our existing customer base.

A seamless migration The team at PROLIST were concerned about disruptions during the infrastructure migration process. Servers Australia^® experts worked closely with their team to make the process seamless.

We were worried that the migration would be a nightmare, but Servers Australia^® made it incredibly easy. We told them what we needed, and their specialists came up with a set of solutions for us. They exceeded our expectations by automating the IP’S to be moved across without our team doing anything. The process was impressive—it just worked.

Automated backups for rapid disaster recovery

Managed through VMware Cloud Director, PROLIST’s virtual data centre solution features automated backups for fast disaster recovery. It is also designed with high availability across two Data Centres so that if one goes offline the other will automatically come online to minimise downtime. vCloud Director also provides enterprise-grade security using a policy-driven approach with securely isolated virtual resources and independent role-based authentication. This gives PROLIST and their customers peace of mind that their data is being managed securely and they won’t face unexpected downtime.

Results

Rapid scalability

PROLIST’s new virtual data centre solution empowers their team to scale capacity up or down to suit changing demands. If they want to bring on a big real estate agency, there are now no resource restrictions holding them back.

Our new virtual data centre solution allows us to scale at the click of our fingers. This was a lot slower and more expensive on our previous platform, so the new environment has been a game changer.

This provides the business with a serious competitive advantage in a rapidly changing market. It means they can onboard a big customer and easily dial up storage and, if their customer’s demands change during quiet periods, they can dial it back down to reduce overprovisioning.

From print orders to our website services, we have a lot of demand on our system and we now have the infrastructure to handle that, no matter what the future holds. As well as providing the scalability we need, our virtual data centre provides reliable uptime and security for our customers.

Cost-effective

PROLIST’s previous infrastructure provided 2.5 terabytes of data while their new virtual data centre solution provides 5 terabytes at the same price. On top of gaining more capacity without increasing costs, the business will also save significantly by eliminating overprovisioning. Previously, they would have to buy storage in bulk and bear the additional costs. Now they only pay for what they need and can scale with ease.

We’ve literally doubled our infrastructure size without spending additional money. On top of this, we also don’t have the extra cost of overprovisioning to make sure our customers have what they need. As well as saving our business money that we can reallocate elsewhere, it also means we can make our prices more competitive.

Easy management and reliable support

Servers Australia are managing the new virtual data centre so that PROLIST can focus on their business. When required, they can also log into the virtual machine at any time to complete any lower-level management.

Moving over to the new environment with management from Servers Australia^® gives us that added level of infrastructure stability. If we have an issue, we can reach out to their team and talk to a real human straight away. We’re now ready to charge into the future without anything holding us back.