INDUSTRY/VERTICAL & PROFILE
The Client is a startup working in close partnership with one of the world’s largest global telephony providers, building the next-generation Cloud-based Unified Communications (CBUC) platform for the consumer and SME markets.
NEEDS OF THE CLIENT
Client was paying tens of thousands of dollars a month to dev/test their solution within a large publicly traded managed hosting provider but knew all along they wanted to bring the solution in-house.
As such, they were researching and playing around with which hardware/software stack (Openstack vs. Cloudstack) would provide the optimal cost/efficiency as they rolled out their product into the market and eventually scaled it around the world.
It took a few months of waiting on our part, after the initial conversation to build the trust required for their team to come to the realization they could use an agnostic third party that wasn’t trying to sell them more of the same services from the same publicly traded managed hosting provider, but a unique solution targeted to their specific needs.
SOLUTION – BENEFITS
After a conversation with their CEO, a subsequent face to face with the team responsible for architecting and deploying a solution, the Client’s team began the engagement with our recommended partner, Redapt, a hardware VAR who also specializes in the architecture and delivery of enterprise private elastic hosted environments.
Though migrating from “outsourced & hosted elsewhere” to “fully managed and controlled in house” is neither simple nor turn-key, by leveraging “Redapt Cloud” the client was able to have a custom solution deployed in @ 6 weeks.
This solution allowed the client the ability to push compute to the public cloud as well as the ability to add additional capacity within their private environment by simply racking and networking a few boxes. This same solution within an AWS-type environment would cost $100’s of thousands in a full production environment.
As the client scales around the world, OSI works hand in hand with the client and Redapt to source and vet the datacenter that each node will sit in, as well as helping to negotiate for the corresponding network infrastructure needed to tie each node together.
CLOSING
Clearly not EVERY company should be pushing away from a pure IaaS model. Different business models may be able to benefit greatly from the ability to spin up 1,000’s of machines on demand and turn them off within a short period of time.
Redapt is one of the several strong providers we turn to when clients are:
- Relatively established in their space.
- Has a somewhat predictable growth curve.
- Are looking to reduce their overall monthly spend on compute resources
- Has a desire to regain control of their infrastructure.
Every single provider we work with is actively engaged with clients who are spending over $30,000/month with the likes of AWS, Softlayer and Rackspace. The clients are looking for a way to regain control of their infrastructure without the massive headache often accompanying such a transition.
Many of our clients come to us seeking to make a transition away from the IaaS model when working at this scale. We can now all prove without a doubt that in almost every case, they are drastically over-spending by staying with a pure IaaS provider. Sometimes this is true with Managed hosting providers as well.
This is no longer rhetoric, but a proven reality given the advancements made on both the physical and virtualization layer over the past few years. The question of “Which specific provider is right for you?” however will depend on a number of variables. Below are just a fraction of the types of questions we dig into with clients to this extent:
- Your budget in total, plus your desire for Capex vs. Opex
- The timelines in place for growth and metrics
- Your familiarity with elastic hosting and what in-house talent you have
- The specific regions needed for deployment
- The internal and external political pressure to work with an “established brand name”
Open Spectrum is here to help you ask the right questions up front, point you in the direction and serve as your advocate throughout the process.
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