Cloud Advancement Services Help a Digital Optimization Company to Quickly Deploy Solutions and Meet Customer Needs with Ease

Business Need

As one of the world’s leading digital transformation firms, Fusion was looking to expand out of the traditional data center and into a modern hybrid cloud model. Fusion needed to be able to quickly deploy their services where they need them when they need them.

In the past, there was a fixed complement of web servers and infrastructure bought five years in advance. The load balancers and firewalls in service were due for a tech refresh given the rapid growth and momentum of Fusion’s business.

Solution and Approach

A scalable solution on demand.. 

As Fusion rapidly grows its business and service offerings, there is a need to quickly deploy solutions and infrastructure based on customer requirements. After engaging Equinix, Synoptek was recommended as a Managed Services Provider to deliver Managed Performance Hub services. Synoptek adds value by

managing the day-to-day operations of the hub and allows Fusion to focus on their core applications and services. Together, the teams support interconnections, ISP connectivity, and a point-to-point connection through Equinix’s Cloud Exchange to any Public Cloud provider Fusion chooses to use. This allows for a rapid turn up or turn down services as needed and on demand.

“What does Synoptek’s Managed Performance Hub do? It…

• Shortens the distance between systems, applications and end users, making it easy to deploy a private cloud to securely and directly connect to public clouds via the Equinix Cloud Exchange™ or cross-connects.
• Simplifies the network with low latency connectivity, giving access to the cloud and the internet without forcing traffic through a limited number of locations.
• Aligns with Synoptek’s best in class architecture and design, allowing Fusion to avoid the costly access into public cloud providers Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure via the public internet or used only where it makes sense.

Contracting with Synoptek managed services changed all that,” explains Ed Iwanski. “They are very responsive and follow up quickly. It’s very easy to get someone on the phone for quick answers

Business Results

Setting up connectivity to Azure was our first great experience with the team,” exclaims Ed Iwanski.  It often takes traditional carriers six to eight months to deliver a circuit, it took Synoptek a matter of weeks. It all came together much faster than we expected.

Another big difference was the level of collaboration between Synoptek and the Fusion teams during the implementation of this project. Synoptek performs the monitoring and alerting and responding to any issues reported. When Fusion has additional work that needs to be done, such as upgrading of firmware, Synoptek partners with them to get it done while transferring useful knowledge.

Ed Iwanski explains that he works closely with Synoptek’s Paul Franco, Dedicated Consulting Engineer (DCE), who brings tremendous additional value.

Jesse Benoit, Principal Solutions Architect at Synoptek adds, “What stands out to me is the teamwork across organizations. When we talk about hybrid clouds. Few firms understand digital transformation and optimization better than Fusion and Synoptek. When the teams began working together, we didn’t have the tribal knowledge or expertise in the other organization’s processes, applications, and services. This grey area where customers and managed service providers first meet is a common problem, yet a differentiator for Synoptek. We provide our ITaaS Services for 24×7 management and monitoring as part of the Managed Performance Hub, while in the DCE role, Paul embeds with the Fusion team, working on projects and tasks and reporting directly to Ed Iwanski for a scheduled number of hours at the direction of Fusion each month. It was the partnership across companies and technologies that produced Fusion’s world-class hybrid cloud.”

In the end, Fusion succeeded in completing the production partner migration to the cloud within a matter of weeks and achieved quick and agile delivery of services using the cloud. Director of Cloud Infrastructure, Nathan Hollenbach, reports that the cost of their new cloud.

Fusion Praise for Synoptek

Nathan Hollenbach further explains, “One of the things that impressed us about Synoptek was their people. Even our initial interactions were very positive. Their teams immediately seemed highly knowledgeable and agile. And they have always been very responsive to our needs.”

Ed Iwanski adds, “What most impressed us about Synoptek was how agile they were in standing up the networking infrastructure. They put a lot of resources at our disposal. If we were looking at something larger, global, they would still have plenty of resources.