Insight, a global provider of intelligent technology solutions, has successfully completed a 12-month phased roll-out of a full service storage and server implementation with UK packaging specialist, Sun Branding Solutions.
Insight was selected to manage a full service ‘hybrid cloud’ implementation for Sun Branding Solutions. In order to make this a success, Insight recommended an Azure solution, an open and flexible cloud platform, that facilitated the easy management and projection of costs for Sun Branding’s onsite infrastructure migration, whilst simplifying billing and support through an Enterprise Agreement.
“We required a high level of expertise, with the necessary industry partnerships, to support our changing technology needs – this is where Insight were able to assist us. Our current storage platform was struggling to cope with demand and was coming to its end of life,” said Kevin Evans, CIO, Sun Branding Solutions. ”We knew that there was no more time to lose and turned to the experts at Insight to upgrade our storage and server infrastructure giving us that essential extra bandwidth.”
The project was rolled out in phases, beginning in late September 2014, reaching completion in September 2015, with minimal impact to internal performance. Thanks to Insight’s expertise and strong industry partnerships with Microsoft, SolidSoft and SystemsUp, Sun Branding was able to make an estimated cost saving of over ?100,000.
The implementation significantly improved data retention and business continuity for Sun Branding’s software offerings. It has increased its service levels to 99.9% uptime on Azure, which has significantly improved Sun Brandings’ ability to provide its customers with uptime guarantees. This is especially prominent considering the size of data that Sun Branding had stored on various tapes and backup. If this was lost, it would have previously taken eight weeks to restore; this has now been reduced to just 15 minutes.
Latency was also reduced by locating its sites closest to its customers. For example, by locating its application servers in Azure locations in the USA for US customers, retailers such as Walmart have been able to achieve 20% improvements in site speed without any code changes.
“Migrating our platforms to the cloud was a slightly risky, but very necessary venture for us,” said Evans. “In order to stay on budget and not exhaust our own limited staff resources, we needed that higher level of expertise with the appropriate industry partnerships to keep us on track and on schedule – this is where Insight came in. Insight has played a pivotal role in improving our efficiency as a growing global business.
