Interoute’s IaaS platform delivers scalable, cost efficient cloud computing for Microsoft System Integrator
London, 24 October 2012 – Advantive, an international provider of Microsoft based ICT solutions, applications, consultancy and maintenance, has reduced the cost of extending its ICT Application development and production platform by 30% using Interoute Virtual Data Centre (VDC). Advantive is also using Interoute VDC to host its Narrowcasting solution InnovationScreen in a SaaS model.
Advantive provides innovative ICT solutions, specialist consultancy and maintenance for Microsoft technology. It also develops and creates its own pioneering Microsoft-based applications and offers hosted platforms to customers who use SharePoint and other Microsoft products as a managed service. To manage its development needs, Advantive built a scalable ICT development platform, but as its business growth accelerated, Advantive faced a future of spiralling hardware costs to build out its platform and keep pace with customer demand. Hosting its ICT production environment in Interoute’s pan-European private cloud, Advantive can scale its ICT platform to meet customer demand without incurring any of the hardware costs it previously had to cover.
Jeroen Wijnen, Advantive’s Director of Services, commented: “Increasing the investment in our own hardware Infrastructure, including the cost of managing the hardware and the hardware support contracts, just didn’t make sense. Plus, our own hardware platform was based in one location, so there were no additional Data Centres to switch the platform to in case of a power or technical fault. Downtime in our ICT environment means downtime for development and production, which is bad for business. So we said no to more hardware, and moved our production environment to Interoute VDC, giving us a scalable, fault tolerant platform with no hardware to purchase, saving us as much as 30% in costs.”
Interoute VDC provides server power, storage and availability to support Advantive’s business to help customers increase efficiency and respond to changing markets and business conditions. This gives Advantive the ability to help customers to think big with their development projects without thinking big costs.
The Interoute VDC European Data Centres in Amsterdam, London, Geneva and Berlin also provide Advantive with a resilient, fault tolerant solution for its ICT development platform, enabling it to be moved between Data Centres instantly if required. The option of data centres across Europe also enables Advantive to get closer to customers in new markets and closer proximity means lower latency, and faster connectivity. Interoute VDC users can select any of Interoute’s physical VDC datacentres, supporting compliance with European data legislation and there is no charge for transferring data or connectivity between VDC Data Centres as they are connected by Interoute’s own pan-European private network.
As well as providing Microsoft solutions and consultancy, Advantive also develops its own solutions and modules, like InnovationScreen (
www.innovationscreen.com). This is a narrowcasting solution based on Microsoft SharePoint, which enables customer employees to publish texts, videos and images on selected screens. The unique VDC combination of on demand flexibility, ‘pay as you grow’ pricing and huge scale means that Advantive can add more computing resource and services in minutes, as customer demand dictates.
Theobert Kissen, CTO of Advantive explains: “ICT forms an undeniably integral part of any organisation. It’s not just a piece of technology; nowadays ICT infrastructure is the dynamic process the entire business relies on. With Interoute’s Virtual Data Centre we are able to use and offer a scalable platform that is flexible and secure. It ensures our business is always online and prepared for the changing needs of customers and the market. And with no charges for transferring data, it’s extremely cost effective. We share a common goal with Interoute, and its VDC provides exactly the support and expertise we were looking for. ”
Matthew Finnie, Interoute’s CTO commented: “We are excited to be working with Advantive. It is a company that has really taken hold of the benefits of cloud computing and offers its customers high levels of innovation and service. Interoute Virtual Data Centre is built into the fabric of Interoute’s extensive pan-European network. Virtualising the Network enabled us to perform the complex Advantive network migration, simply through the ability to extend and transparently relocate the production networks from the old Data Centre into Interoute VDC. This also dramatically reduced the normal costs and time overhead associated with Data Centre moves. Interoute VDC gives Advantive all the convenience of a public cloud, but with the added security of a private cloud.”
