Customer success story Layered Tech expands to new markets and improves ROI with CA 3Tera AppLogic Customer profile Industry: Managed services, web services and on-demand cloud computing Company: Layered Tech Business Layered Tech is a leader in managed hosting services with data centers in the US, Europe and Japan and clients ranging from Web startups to some of the world s largest consultancy firms. Challenge As Layered Tech s customers required more complex services, the cost of servicing them increased. They needed a solution that would enable rapid reaction to hosting demands while helping to lower operating costs. Solution CA 3Tera AppLogic is a turn-key cloud computing platform enabling infrastructure solutions that can dynamically adapt to changing needs. BENEFIT Layered Tech s implementation of CA 3Tera AppLogic helped it improve ROI and enabled Layered Tech to service a new market of premium customers without increasing costs. we can
Business A leader in managed hosting solutions with world-class data centers In just a few years, Layered Tech has catapulted from a supplier of dedicated-server hosting services to become a leading, global provider of managed services, web services and on-demand cloud computing. Layered Tech s infrastructure now powers millions of sites and Internet-enabled applications; including e-commerce, software as a service (SaaS) and content distribution networks. Layered Tech s transformation is the result of their ability to instantly deploy and manage new applications and services. This ability combined with their high-quality infrastructure and support helps their cloud customers reduce capital expenses, save on operating costs and focus on their core business issues. Layered Tech now has data centers in the US, Europe and Japan with clients ranging from web startups, mid-sized enterprises and some the world s largest consultancy and integration firms. Challenge Respond instantly to unique hosting demands while being positioned to lower operating costs Layered Tech continually strives to improve efficiency while adding additional capabilities to provide best-in-class service to their customers. In this regard, their hosting business faced two unique challenges. First, unmanaged dedicated-server hosting is a highly commoditized market with little room for differentiation. Managed services, on the other hand, requires costly manual processes and does not scale easily. Thus, as Layered Tech s customers grew and required more complex solutions, the cost of Our customers look to us to deliver a balance of responsible innovation and rock-solid hosting reliability. Todd Abrams President, Layered Tech 02
servicing them increased as well. Additionally, customers began asking for the ability to purchase compute, storage and network cycles in addition to leasing servers. Todd Abrams, President of Layered Tech, comments, Our customers look to us to deliver a knowledgeable balance of responsible innovation and rock-solid hosting reliability. With the cloud computing and virtualization revolution well under way, Layered Tech is committed to supporting our customers as they transition and adopt these new innovative solutions. To build their business effectively, Layered Tech sought a solution that combined low maintenance and standard infrastructure, with the ability to react quickly to the unique demands of their managed service customers. Solution Providing enterprise class, data center services to customers while lowering operating costs A major consideration in selecting a solution for Layered Tech was the variety of customer services that had to be supported. Because Layered Tech s customer range is broad, the solution needed to address everything from web-hosting control panels to SaaS to gaming. The larger applications required custom infrastructure solutions that included load balancing, intrusion detection, VPNs, scalable data bases, and high volume mail services. The majority of these applications were considered mission critical. Layered Tech needed to find a scalable and agile solution that allowed the organization to: Deploy and manage new applications and services Assure security concerns are properly addressed Provide for minimum service interruption due to hardware failures Support both common and custom infrastructure requirements Helped it significantly cut costs. Layered Tech explored several solutions, including virtualization, specialized hardware, and automation systems, before discovering the 3Tera cloud computing platform from CA Technologies. CA s 3Tera team worked closely with the Layered Tech team to implement the solution. 3Tera offered a turn-key cloud computing platform enabling solutions that quickly adapt to changing needs. Using CA 3Tera AppLogic, Layered Tech gained the ability to: Deploy online applications in minutes instead of weeks 03
Scale on demand and deliver security and business continuity for its applications Empower administrators to design, edit, configure, and control multi-tier applications using an intuitive web based drag-and-drop editor and commodity servers. Following the implementation, Layered Tech launched a virtual server offering with the new brand The GridLayer. The initial installation consisted of 48 servers and has since scaled to hundred of servers in multiple data centers. As the GridLayer virtual server offering proved successful, the company rolled out additional services using CA 3Tera AppLogic, including Virtual Private Data Centers and on-demand storage solution called DynaVol. This enabled Layered Tech to offer complex, enterprise class, data center services to their customers with an incredibly low cost of entry. Benefit Providing services to a new set of premium customers without adding staff or expensive hardware Layered Tech s implementation of CA 3Tera AppLogic helped improve ROI and enable them to service a new level of demanding customers without increasing costs. CA 3Tera AppLogic helped us eliminate $350,000 in labor costs. This freed up technical personnel to continue servicing our customers, comments Abrams. By using CA 3Tera AppLogic we extended our hardware life by almost 20 percent. Todd Abrams President, Layered Tech 04
Improved ROI CA 3Tera AppLogic enables the broad expansion of services to customers including niche premium services, which can significantly improve ROI. Reduced support costs By allowing users to deal with server reboot and re-image requests on their own, CA 3Tera AppLogic helped Layered Tech eliminate the most common trouble tickets. CA 3Tera AppLogic helped us eliminate $350,000 in labor costs. This freed up technical personnel to continue servicing our customers, comments Abrams. Extended asset life Users no longer manage servers directly, so turn-over is lower and the useful life of hardware has been extended by at least 20 percent. Provisioning CA 3Tera AppLogic enables the rapid provisioning of resources. A new grid can actually be provisioned in less than 45 minutes, allowing quick deployment of utility based services and platforms with scalable CPU, memory and storage. 3Tera-based solutions empower administrators with basically the ease of flipping a light switch to design, build, deploy and manage their internet infrastructures, states Abrams. Expansion into new markets High-end customers require custom infrastructure, managed services and extra support. Offering services, based on CA 3Tera AppLogic allows administrators to design, edit, configure, and control multi-tier applications using an intuitive web based drag-and-drop editor and commodity servers. Layered Tech can now provide services to a new set of demanding customers without new staff or expensive equipment. Copyright 2010 CA. All rights reserved. All trademarks, trade names, service marks and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies. This document is for your informational purposes only. CA assumes no responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of the information. To the extent permitted by applicable law, CA provides this document as is without warranty of any kind, including, without limitation, any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or noninfringement. In no event will CA be liable for any loss or damage, direct or indirect, from the use of this document, including, without limitation, lost profits, business interruption, goodwill or lost data, even if CA is expressly advised in advance of the possibility of such damages. The information and results illustrated here are based upon the service provider s experiences with the referenced software product in a variety of environments, which may include production and nonproduction environments. Provisioning time may vary depending on hardware size. Past performance of the software products in such environments is not necessarily indicative of the future performance of such software products in identical, similar or different environments.