We had to review the cooling system and solve several infrastructure problems, such as the increase in generator sets and noise reduction as well as a number of logistics problems.
Be Business Responsive with Managed Services
Flexibility, scalability of the offer and cost reduction: the advantages that you can obtain by entrusting your IT systems in data center at Elmec
Flexibility in fields that 'travel' as fast as publishing allows you to respond faster to market needs and gain competitive advantage.
Atex, a leading provider of solutions for the management of editorial contents and advertising, has entrusted Elmec Informatica's data center with its hardware infrastructure.
A project that has led to significant savings in infrastructure costs, a very high degree of scalability to respond promptly to market needs and a new model of work organization.
The challenge
Until a few years ago, Atex's architectural solution was based on monolithic systems, that is, on Sun Solaris machines.
For market needs, dictated by the fact that in the meantime Sun Solaris was acquired by Oracle that decided to abandon a whole range of medium level servers and to keep only the high level, with very expensive hardware, the company decided to migrate to an open environment, i.e. Linux.
At this point, Atex found itself faced with two options: either making major investments to update its hardware on the Sun Solaris platform or looking for a technology partner that could provide all the basic hardware and system infrastructure. Not only that, at that time Atex was faced with other major infrastructure investments.
"That being said, at that time infrastructure costs were a burden on the Managed Services budget, so being able to convert infrastructure costs into service costs made it easier for me to make my choice" continues Fabrizio Riva.
At this point Atex carried out a market survey, initially they contacted four partners in 2012, then they became two, and finally they kept Elmec with whom they signed the contract at the end of July 2013.
The Solution
First of all, Atex moved into Elmec its data center, which consisted of about 440 physical and virtual machines that were subsequently all converted into the virtual world.
Currently in Elmec there are 126 virtual machines, 10 physical servers, 5 environment servers for physical development and 66 are the managed machines that will soon be moved to the new data center BR4, a major infrastructure in Italy due to its capacity and potential, which offers the possibility to access flexible and high quality services.
A team of highly specialized technicians, with certified skills from leading software and hardware vendors, provides first-class levels of efficiency and helps companies to cope with the challenges of the IT world.
The impact of the adopted solution falls mainly on two divisions of the Milan headquarters, Research & Development and Managed Services. As far as the R&D division is concerned, Elmec has moved the development and testing environment of a new software used worldwide. For Managed Services, the servers located in Elmec provide full Managed Services for the Italian market, and support services for the French, German, Czech and Irish markets.
Benefits Achieved
The outsourcing of the data center, besides bringing benefits in terms of infrastructure and cost savings to the Italian headquarters, that could even move their offices as it no longer needed the machine room, also brought benefits in terms of work organization.
As this infrastructure can be managed remotely, it is no longer necessary for someone to be physically present in the offices late in the evening or overnight or in the evening to monitor its proper functioning.
The other thing we were looking for was flexibility and we got it from Elmec.
“The other thing we were looking for was flexibility and we got it from Elmec” continues Fabrizio Riva. Our company works in the publishing market, a fast-paced sector that is looking for the utmost versatility: this is often followed by important infrastructural investments that require high flexibility and a new work organisation.
Furthermore, Atex was able to convert fixed costs into variable costs. To have 400, 200 or 50 servers, for instance, entails investments that are not related to the actual business performance. Today, however, these costs are proportional to the workload expected from Elmec and therefore also to what Atex sells to its own customers.
Another advantage is being able to be certain of the initial and unwind costs. "Today, thanks to the agreements signed with Elmec, the way outs are defined: for example, we know exactly which costs we will incur if a customer leaves," says Fabrizio Riva.
Finally, skills are another very important point, "infrastructure management absorbed a lot of resources with a low economic return".
“The outsourcing of the data center has allowed us to release these resources by refocusing them on our core business, leaving to Elmec, what they do best, at fixed-cost. It's a win-win solution for both of us”, finally says Fabrizio Riva.
The Future
Atex has found in Elmec a valuable technological partner and is planning to develop further projects in the future. For example, we are studying the possibility of developing and providing publishing with software solutions that integrate with instant journalism and mobile work, or even more complete and scalable solutions that can quickly adapt to the changing needs of the market.