Industry: Technology, Consulting
Challenges: Cloudkey outgrew the constraints of its colocated servers and needed a solution that was accessible online and customizable at the customer level.
Solution: CRM Infrastructure
Cloudkey developed a customer relationship management solution (CRM) on colocated servers for a single client in 2008. As they gained more customers and the company grew, their infrastructure could not scale with the growth. Needing to make its hosted infrastructure customizable at the customer level and accessible online, Cloudkey looked to move to a cloud hosting provider that met a series of requirements, specific to their needs.
Business Outcome: With the help of Hostway’s public cloud service, Cloudkey’s client base has grown, with roughly 1,000 end-users now interacting with the CRM system every day.
Cloudkey built their CRM solution on colocated servers in 2008 at the behest of a single client. As use of the CRM system spread, Cloudkey’s infrastructure was stretched to meet the requirements of its clients, who increasingly needed customized versions of the product and required online access.
“To satisfy all of our customers, it was becoming evident we’d have to make big changes to the application’s functionality,” said Cloudkey founder Scott Montgomery. “And while we were making big changes, we decided we might as well revisit our hosting plan as well.”
With the cost of expanding his own system appearing prohibitive, Montgomery knew the direction he needed to move.
“From my perspective, there’s no reason a company of our size and with our needs would go with dedicated servers unless they were required to by law,” Montgomery said. “People worry about the risks of cloud vs. dedicated servers – in reality these risks are different but roughly equal. You can be the smartest IT architect around, and there are still going to be points of failure either way.”
With the significant cost benefits of cloud service, the choice was easy for Cloudkey.
Another point of emphasis for Cloudkey was downtime. A redundant solution had been beyond Cloudkey’s reach before, but Hostway’s public cloud guaranteed 100% uptime. Hostway provides a highly available environment on Hyper-V with failover clustering functionality inherent in its infrastructure.
“Hostway’s uptime is better than what I can offer with my own servers and my own engineers dedicated to that environment,” Montgomery said.
Cloud infrastructure offered Cloudkey benefits beyond the obvious scaling advantages. Cloudkey became able to create a dynamic business model that was capable of changing without significant infrastructure changes and expenses.
“We make adjustments on a client-by-client basis,” Montgomery said. “Now, we’re less boxed into our decisions.”
But one of the biggest selling points was turning over some responsibilities to a hosting provider. Cloudkey can focus on developing new features within its CRM tool to win more clients.
“We develop applications because we’re good at that,” Montgomery said. “We trust Hostway to ensure the infrastructure we need to grow is available and quickly accessible – that’s their core competency.”
With the help of Hostway’s public cloud service, Cloudkey’s client base has grown, with roughly 1,000 end-users now interacting with the CRM system every day. Cloudkey has added six servers in the last three months alone, and they are continuing to grow significantly on Hostway’s cloud platform.
Cloudkey also benefits from the around-the-clock availability and expertise of Hostway support, offered at no additional expense.
“Hostway’s entire support team is not only responsive, they’re knowledgeable on every topic I’ve thrown their way,” Montgomery said. “I don’t even know if there’s a second tier of support –whoever answers the phone has had every answer.”
Not only did Cloudkey’s security situation remain the same as in its prior colocation arrangement – the cost went down significantly. In addition to the increased physical security of a Hostway datacenter, Cloudkey benefits from three layers of power supply and failover protection.
“What we were paying just to rent floor space was almost double what we pay end-to-end with Hostway,” Montgomery explained. “When you add in what we were paying for servers and the salaries of the three system engineers we had to manage those servers, the cost difference is extremely significant to our bottom line.”
Hostway’s control panel offers Cloudkey an abundance of do-it-yourself options – and when they need something customized, Cloudkey’s account manager at Hostway works with support to have things ready within a day.
“We knew we were going to save money, and we have,” Montgomery said. “But we didn’t expect to find a team that made everything so easy every step of the way.”
For Cloudkey, moving mission-critical applications to the cloud wasn’t a risk. It was a simple decision, and they’ve never looked back.
“We’re not a big company – our ability to supervise a managed environment is limited,” Montgomery said. “We get more management out of Hostway’s cloud than out of our own managed servers. If it is about the bottom line, we pay less for cloud. If it’s about managing risk, Hostway’s cloud has definitely reduced security and scalability risks.”
Cloudkey’s savings from switching to the cloud – in addition to the growth they’ve experienced thanks to their new CRM capabilities – have created an efficient, profitable business model, scalable whenever needed. And the customer base is only growing.
“We have 10 times as many users as when we were on managed infrastructure, and three times as many groups of clients. We’ve been able to instantly scale, without downtime, to support our growth,” Montgomery said. “Hostway’s service makes that possible.”
Industry: Technology, Marketing
Challenges: When QWASI needed to meet increased volume, speed, and security requirements to launch its scalable marketing technology platform, the company knew its in-house hosting solution wouldn’t cut it. QWASI found its answer in Hostway's managed servers, complemented by the certifications, applications, and partner network QWASI needed to operate efficiently and securely.
Solution: Infrastructure Scalability, Security, Database, Partner
QWASI had an idea, a plan and an audience for its premium mobile and social marketing services – it just needed an infrastructure that could keep up with it. Find out how this fast-growth SMB selected the technology behind their technology and became a preferred provider for a few very large enterprise clients.
In 2006, QWASI decided to deliver their award-winning innovative solutions to a growing market via a tool called the Mobile Marketing Center. This solution would help its clients communicate with customers 24/7, detect customer trends, preferences, and optimize their marketing strategies. QWASI’s testing and development initially took place on servers that QWASI managed and hosted themselves.
When QWASI was ready to make its new tool publicly available, they knew their hosting solution would need to scale rapidly to handle the increased traffic they expected.
“We weighed the costs of building upon our own ‘data center’ against the benefits of partnering with a hosting provider,” QWASI Chief Technical Officer Jon Thies explained. “It was immediately clear that a hosting provider would not only be more cost-effective, they would simply be better equipped to manage our infrastructure. We’re application guys – they’re hosting guys. We can accomplish more with them focusing on the infrastructure for us.”
QWASI had an employee who had previously worked for Hostway, and suggested the company’s decision-makers see what the hosting provider could offer.
“Hostway came highly recommended, and provided several unique qualities,” Thies explained. “We have servers with an uptime of over 1,000 days. It’s nice not to have to reboot a server for three years.”
The executives at QWASI were also impressed with the expertise displayed by Hostway’s personnel, both in helping them migrate to Hostway’s servers, and in adapting as QWASI’s needs changed.
Hostway’s partnerships with other technology companies helped QWASI meet technical needs beyond those they expected a hosting provider to address. Companies like R1Soft provided a backup solution, while StillSecure provided QWASI with additional resources and expertise for security. Internally, QWASI has migrated to Hostway’s hosted applications such as Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint.
When Hostway became SAS 70 Type II certified in 2010, this certification became a major selling point for QWASI’s prospective key enterprise customers.
“A lot of our competitors don’t offer the certifications that Hostway does,” Thies said. “First SAS 70, and now SSAE 16. We’re able to offer our clients the added confidence that certification brings.”
As their security needs continue to evolve, QWASI has come to Hostway with new challenges and has been impressed with the hosting provider’s willingness to adapt to meet their specific needs.
“When we bring them a challenge, they don’t say, ‘No.’ They say, ‘I’ll see how we can make that happen.’” Thies said. “I wish I could get that kind of service everywhere.”
From the time QWASI chose Hostway as their hosting service provider in 2006, the growth of their business has accelerated rapidly. QWASI now runs 13 managed servers at Hostway, and is adding an average of one to two servers each quarter.
“Two years ago in October, we acquired four servers to reach eight total, and we grew into that,” Thies said. “Then we added a couple more, and quickly grew into those. In the last few years we’ve grown from a company that could be hosted out of a garage to an enterprise that runs sophisticated data analysis for some of the world’s largest companies, and Hostway has kept pace with us every step of the way.”
Today, QWASI offers its technology solutions as a blend of social, local and mobile solutions, with the scalability for the world’s biggest brands to manage communication with their end mobile and social users. The scalability of the platform or server environment is important, as large corporations track how their regional and local marketing teams interact with various clients around the world. Managing the Big Data and analysis that is collected with all these conversations is important for producing the predictive analytics that allow brands to harness their international and local reputations.
“Our enterprise customers receive dedicated hardware, so there can be no impact on SLAs,” Thies said. “That’s basically how we’ve grown. The customer size and throughput requirements dictate the deployment of dedicated servers.”
This flexibility, combined with Hostway’s partnerships, skills and resources, has made Hostway an intrinsic part of QWASI’s success.
“We have been very fortunate to have found Hostway,” Thies said. “Backup, security, certifications, flexibility – they have met each need we’ve come up with.”
Customer: clubZone
Industry: Ecommerce, Entertainment
Challenges: clubZone required a hosting provider that would offer a tailored hosting plan in order to address its unique situation – and a pricing structure that accommodated traffic fluctuation.
Solution: Web Presence
clubZone needed a tailored hosting plan and pricing structure that would accommodate their fluctuating traffic.
Business Outcome: clubZone’s site traffic dramatically increases throughout December, culminating in 20 fold traffic at the end of the month to accommodate New Years Eve ticket sales.
Hostway worked closely with clubZone to craft a solution that addressed the customization required to meet their hosting needs and guaranteed 100% network uptime during peak traffic periods.
clubZone relies on a combination of colocation and managed hosting solutions from Hostway. When the peak season begins for clubZone.com, Hostway’s solutions include the addition of temporary servers to meet the demands of the traffic influx. Rapid scalability, tailored specifically to its needs, affords clubZone peace of mind in knowing Hostway has them covered, regardless of the site’s traffic level.
Uptime is of the utmost importance to clubZone, as a single day down in December could cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue. During most of the year clubZone.com will see roughly 4-5 Mb of traffic per second; however, during the month of December, the volume climbs to more than 100+ Mb of traffic per second. The company’s heaviest traffic volume occurs within a 12-hour window leading up to New Years Eve, resulting in approximately 15,000 ticket sales in a very short period of time. December’s sales of New Year’s Eve event ticket sales represent 60-70% of clubZone’s annual revenues. A crash during this critical time frame would be catastrophic for business. clubZone relies on the experts at Hostway to manage the sharp influx in traffic – equating to sales – and ensure optimal site performance.
“I can add or subtract servers according to my business needs – no other hosting company I considered gave me this kind of flexibility coupled with a 100% network uptime guarantee,” said Mike Schwarz, clubZone President
From January through November clubZone.com generates an average of 1.2 million visitors per month to the site with an average of 4 million visitors during the month of December. Site traffic dramatically increases throughout December, culminating in 20 fold traffic at the end of the month to accommodate New Years Eve ticket sales. clubZone required a hosting provider that would offer a tailored hosting plan in order to address its unique situation – and a pricing structure that accommodated traffic fluctuation.
Even in unique situations Hostway provides the customization and rapid scalability needed to meet the hosting needs of any company. Hostway has provided clubZone with the security of a 100% network uptime guaranteecoupled with the flexibility offered by adding temporary services during the busiest of times.