Success in a Private Cloud: Dramatically Reducing Costs and Increasing Efficiency

This multi-billion Corporate Media conglomerate faced a dilemma – to substantially reduce costs while guaranteeing a high level of client service and support to their 1.0+ million subscribers. Although the driving force was to obtain dramatic cost savings, it was imperative to have all support systems available to the subscriber community: everything from handling start/stop delivery schedules for subscriber’s vacation schedules, taking care of delivery issues, and maintaining good communications with the advertising community.

Challenge(s)

• Looking for significant cost savings
• Improving a hardened fault-tolerant data center environment
• Obtaining additional backup support to ensure 24×7 service
• Finding a provider with flexible Mainframe solutions

When it was concluded that the current in-house data center requirements were running as cost- efficiently as possible, other alternatives had to be weighed. The question was: How much could be saved from a private cloud (outsourced) solution? The environment was complicated. Mainframe services were being provided for multiple outlets within the organization.

The environment needed to be risk-free, especially since the region is often impacted by hurricanes and severe weather, which presented the threat of losing power and connection to their mainframe environment. There was also a dependence on a limited number of staff for the technical skills required to support the mainframe environment.

There were four key factors for outsourcing. First, we are in ‘Hurricane-Alley,’ said the Executive Director. “The mainframe was running our critical systems, and the risk of losing access to these applications because of bad weather was not an option.

And finally, and most importantly, we were looking for Blue Hill to help us reduce costs. If we did not realize a significant cost savings, we wouldn’t have proceeded.

Solution

• Delivered Mainframe hosting solutions.
• Helped provide automation tools for certain workloads.
• Provided flexibility within service delivery and options.
• Provided expertise and excellent communication skills, ensuring the client is not just a number.

Even today, we don’t have to deal with the minutia of each individual change order,
which means I’m not wasting a lot of my time on the simple things.

In the contract it was very important that our SLA’s remained consistent, that we
didn’t have a performance hit in the current processing. We were promised that our
processing would be as good as or better in the Blue Hill environment – that was
written in the contract – and that’s what we got! This migration has worked out very
well.

The Transition Process

A project plan was developed and customized to meet specific needs. Nine sites were being moved, and the final migration had to be done all at once. To ensure a smooth migration, there were multiple tests over multiple weekends prior to the actual migration. During the planning process, multiple crash kits (full backups) were flown up to Blue Hill. The environment was built, and tapes were restored. Then, during migration weekend, the final crash kit was loaded onto a plane.

The migration weekend began at 12pm Central Time – and the production system needed to be up and available for Customer Service by 6 am the next morning.

The thing that I liked about the Blue Hill team was that they were here on site and worked in our environment prior to the migration to ensure that all critical processes were identified, and documentation was up to date to facilitate the transition.

Continuing the Relationship

After migration, the batch cycles ran faster, the monitoring improved, and the DR recovery processes were streamlined and are tested multiple times per year. There was a material reduction in overall costs, and today Blue Hill continues to negotiate best-in-class pricing for software licensing products.

It’s nice to be able to call the CTO and say, ‘Hey, Tom – I need your help with this,’ and know he is there to take my call and he’ll be responsive when I call – it’s very valuable. That’s why I think of Blue Hill as an extension of my team.

This is a true partnership – and truly a win-win for both us and Blue Hill.