United Kingdom–based cloud service provider Outsourcery offers customers a broad range of services, including software applications, virtualised infrastructures, and unified communications. It wanted to develop its business by opening two advanced data centres to support expansion of hosted services to customers using a cloud delivery model. Outsourcery turned to the HP & Microsoft Alliance, which is a leader in providing managed end-to-end communications and collaboration solutions, including hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Outsourcery expects to increase its business five-fold in the next 24 months, and forecasts that hardware costs will halve. Virtualisation will accommodate a much higher concentration of customers and services in its data centres—providing scalability and cutting costs for both Outsourcery and its clients.
Situation
Outsourcery provides communications and hosted IT solutions to businesses of all sizes. It has one of the broadest cloud offerings in the United Kingdom (U.K.), supplying hosted software applications, virtualised infrastructures, and unified communications solutions—as well as customisation services. A Microsoft Certified Partner with seven competencies—and Microsoft Gold Certified Partner for Microsoft Dynamics CRM—Outsourcery has seen cloud-services revenues grow from zero in 2007 to more than £5 million in 2010, and is expecting to double growth year on year. In its most recent Worldwide Partner Awards, Microsoft named Outsourcery both 2010 Hosting Solutions Partner of the Year and Microsoft Dynamics Hosting Partner of the Year.
As part of its long-term business development strategy, Outsourcery wanted to invest in a state-of-the-art virtualised cloud platform. The company decided to open two advanced data centres in London and Leicester, designed to support expansion of its hosted services to customers using virtualisation technology.
Dan Germain, Director of Hosting Infrastructure at Outsourcery, says: “We’re aiming to provide the broadest software-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service product set in the sector, together with the best service and support for customers and partners. With four years’ experience in managing hosting solutions for customers, we want to become the first choice for managed business application hosting services in the U.K.”
Germain forecasts that Outsourcery will experience a five-fold increase in hosted services business over the first 18 to 24 months after the launch, as more companies adopt the pay-as-you-go approach to acquiring the latest software. He says: “The per-user per-month pricing model removes any need for upfront investment in software or hardware. In addition, a recent change to Microsoft Licensing, known as License Mobility, allows customers to use their existing Microsoft licensing agreements and move their application servers to a service provider in the cloud.”
Solution
Outsourcery turned to the HP & Microsoft Alliance, which specialises in providing end-to-end managed communications and collaboration solutions for customers. Before committing to the offering, Outsourcery evaluated other solutions on the market, eventually deciding to deliver a next-generation infrastructure based on an HP Converged Infrastructure, HP ProLiant BladeSystem server blades, and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 with Hyper-V technology.
For service provisioning, management, and control of the cloud infrastructure and application workloads, Outsourcery is using the Microsoft System Center suite of products. HP Insight Control for Microsoft System Center provides integration of the HP hardware features into the Microsoft System Center console.
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The reputation of the HP–Microsoft Frontline Partnership lends credibility to the solution for our customers, with HP involving OCSL—one of its leading partners—to produce a modular and scalable solution. |
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Dan Germain
Director of Hosting Infrastructure
Outsourcery |
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Germain says: “We chose the Microsoft and HP combination because it has the strategic technical competence and computing power to provide virtualised server and storage solutions to meet our needs. The reputation of the HP–Microsoft Frontline Partnership lends credibility to the solution for our customers, with HP involving OCSL—one of its leading partners—to produce a modular and scalable solution.”
HP & Microsoft Alliance Partner of the Year OCSL is a specialist in business-aligned IT. Germain says: “As a Microsoft virtualisation specialist, we had confidence that OCSL had the experience and approach to deliver a complete solution for Outsourcery. OCSL further developed the design to offer an advanced solution beyond our initial requirements, bringing together the best features of Windows Server 2008 R2 and the HP virtualisation platform.”
Benefits
Outsourcery is using a powerful combination of Windows Server 2008 R2, Hyper-V technology, and the HP virtualisation platform to support new customers for hosted services. These include infrastructure-as-a-service, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and Microsoft Lync Server 2010. The scalable and highly resilient environment, supported by the Microsoft System Center family of management products, saves money for both Outsourcery and its customers. It means customers benefit from the most up-to-date Microsoft software without any need for upfront investment in on-premises infrastructure and solution deployment.
Next-Generation Data Centres Help Meet Growing Customer Demand
The state-of-the-art virtualised cloud platform based on Hyper-V technology, System Center, and the HP virtualisation platform, is supported by two new next-generation data centres. They provide Outsourcery with the scalability to rapidly meet growing customer demand for hosted services.
Outsourcery intends to expand its business and provide the broadest software-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service product set in its sector, for offerings such as hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM as well as cloud-based unified communications and collaboration software.
Germain says: “Using a hosted Microsoft solution from Outsourcery means companies can benefit from the latest communications, collaboration, and customer management tools without the costs of installing and running their own servers and software.”
Subscription Licensing Removes Need for Upfront Investment
Outsourcery and its customers are using the Microsoft cloud services on a pay-as-you-go financial model. This helps customers manage their budgets more effectively and allows them to scale up or down according to their needs.
Germain says: “This managed services approach is ideal for customers in the current economic climate and is more environmentally friendly overall. With Windows Server 2008 R2 and Hyper-V, there are licensing benefits from using virtualisation, including unlimited virtual machines per CPU—especially for a service provider partner such as Outsourcery, which would otherwise use large numbers of physical servers. The operational savings are substantial.”
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Using a hosted Microsoft solution from Outsourcery means companies can benefit from the latest communications, collaboration, and customer management tools without the costs of installing and running their own servers and software. |
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Dan Germain
Director of Hosting Infrastructure
Outsourcery |
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Converged Infrastructure Approach Halves Hardware Costs
Outsourcery forecasts that its hardware costs will halve with the HP converged infrastructure approach—an architecture that integrates technologies into shared pools of interoperable resources.
James Griffin, Director of Product Strategy, Outsourcery, says: “With Windows Server 2008 R2 and HP, we can cut costs significantly. Virtualisation gives us a much higher concentration of customers and services in our data centre—cutting costs for us and our customers. Plus, by choosing Hyper-V we can continue to make the most of the expertise we’ve acquired in Windows technologies.”
Scalable Platform Provides Foundation for Expansion
The scalability of the solution was a key factor in the choice of HP and Microsoft technology. The Outsourcery business model reflects its confidence in the resilience of the new solution and the round-the-clock monitoring provided through the Microsoft System Center technologies.
Germain says: “Our customers expect as near as possible to 100 per cent uptime. In the next 18 to 24 months after launch, we expect a five-fold increase in business, partly due to the reliability of our service. For us, the best part about working with HP and Microsoft has been the development of a modular and scalable solution, which will accommodate expansion without the need for heavy reinvestment.”
Microsoft Server Product Portfolio
For more information about the Microsoft server product portfolio, go to:
www.microsoft.com/servers/default.mspx
For More Information
For further information about Microsoft products and services, please visit:
www.microsoft.com/uk
or call 0870 60 10 100*
For hearing impaired customers with a Minicom, contact: 0870 50 30 400*
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For more information about HP products and services, call or visit the website at: www.hp.com
For more information about OCSL products and services, call or visit the website at:
www.ocsl.co.uk
For more information about Outsourcery products and services, call or visit the website at:
www.outsourcery.co.uk
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
