Managed Hosting Case Study for ATG Ecommerce Solutions Provider
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Desato.com
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"We don't have to worry about anything. Tenzing allows us to focus on our business"
- Darren Pirang, President and CEO, Desato
BACKGROUND
Desato provides Ecommerce solutions using industry respected ATG Ecommerce software. Desato's engineers create efficient online business environments, customizing and seamlessly integrating applications for complete business critical solutions. As a systems integrator, Desato puts together the right set of components and manages services to meet all of the needs of the end user.
Desato delivers Operations Management conversant with virtually every Database, Application Server and Web Server available. Desato's presence in the European and Asian markets demonstrates its global capacity to build end-to end solutions for its clients, from research and needs analysis to infrastructure architecture and applications that work seamlessly, on time every time.
CHALLENGE
Desato was engaged by an established multinational firm with diverse business interests to build out its first foray into Ecommerce. For Desato to succeed, The ATG Ecommerce application needed to run flawlessly to support this new revenue stream. In addition, a top-tier managed hosting partner was needed to provide the production and testing infrastructure, as well as disaster recovery services.
Darren Pirang, President and CEO of Desato, identified some of the core needs of his firm. "Our hosting partner needed to demonstrate flexibility, reliability, responsiveness, and a broad knowledge base." He continued: "We needed to know that application management could be safely done".
In considering the right approach and the right partner, along with the specific technical specifications, Desato identified several business critical elements that their chosen partner would have to provide:
- A focus on managed hosting services and proven track record
- The flexibility to meet the unique requirements of the client's ATG application
- Certification against the industry's highest information security standards
- A willingness to be involved in managing risk
- An ultra-high level of service delivered within established ITIL best practices for IT Service Management (ITSM) by individuals intimately familiar with Desato's needs and those of the end user
SOLUTION
Desato looked at a number of potential partners as they determined their needs. They carefully considered Q9 and Fusepoint, leading Canadian managed hosting firms, as well as others. In the end, Desato settled on Tenzing. Pirang was impressed with Tenzing's data centers and infrastructure, but what made Tenzing the right fit was its commitment to total customer ownership and satisfaction. Right from the start, Tenzing demonstrated that its services were eminently scalable, flexible, and reliable. "They hit all the right notes." according to Pirang, "Not only did they cover off all our requirements for an enterprise-class solution but there was no cumbersome internal bureaucracy to deal with. Tenzing's seamless, highly structured internal organization, quarterbacked by the Technical Account Manager (TAM) dedicated to our account, was hard at work from the start."
Tenzing brings a wealth of experience and a formidable knowledge base to its comprehensive portfolio of managed IT services. Its five-step, "Summit with Tenzing" approach to managed services and ISO 27001 and SAS 70 certified hosting infrastructure has set new benchmarks for performance. Tenzing has developed a reputation for flexibility and responsiveness among newer companies, while demonstrating to established firms that it is a trusted partner, sharing risks as well as best practices while managing the entire IT lifecycle.
While Tenzing provided Desato with a high performance, multi-tiered infrastructure to host the production, staging and management components of its ATG environment, most impressive to Desato was the "Summit with Tenzing" approach. "This disciplined approach to engineering, implementing and maintaining enterprise-class hosting environments," noted Pirang, "resulted in better than expected outcomes."
Assessment
Tenzing's Solutions Engineers (SEs) and Technical Account Managers (TAMs) are highly trained and experienced professionals who appreciate the technical challenges and business realities behind any project. The SE and TAM work with the client to develop a realistic assessment of the client's business requirements and technical capabilities. This is Tenzing's first and most important step to becoming a trusted partner.
Tenzing's assessment services include:
- On-site discovery of business requirements and special pain points and constraints
- Consultative meetings with application development team and in-house IT expertise
- Expert analysis of technical requirements and ITSM capabilities
- Consultation around the IT life-cycle and ITSM best practices
- Access to professional Microsoft, Linux and Oracle solutions engineering
- Access to subject matter experts on IT support, delivery, and infrastructure
- Detailed map of the applications at hand and their ideal end state
The TAM's role continues throughout the project lifecycle and business relationship to ensure ongoing and complete client satisfaction.
Design
Utilizing the results of the assessment process, Tenzing develops a proposal covering all of the identified requirements and objectives. Outlining which of Tenzing's managed services should be applied to best deliver, what Tenzing CTO Kelly Beardmore calls, the "core-ilities" - application availability, reliability, capacity, scalability, security, manageability and affordability - Tenzing will present a winning formula. Tenzing's design services include:
- Expert Microsoft, Linux and Oracle solutions engineering services
- Service Level Planning
- Capacity Planning
- Availability & Continuity Planning
- Security Services Planning
- Infrastructure Services Planning
Deployment
Making no assumption that everything works as planned, Tenzing's deployment procedures follow strict quality control protocols. Attention to detail in the beginning reduces the chance of issues when in production.
Tenzing's deployment services include:
- System Build & Configuration
- Baseline Application Performance & Security Testing
- Application Availability & Continuity Testing
- Documentation of SOPs & WIs
- Migration Services
Operations
As deployment, testing, and migration of data is completed, Support and Delivery services are engaged. Tenzing structures their operations around ITIL best practices, and is one of the only firms of its kind to be both ISO 27001 and SAS 70 certified. With operations centers in Toronto, Ontario and Kelowna, British Columbia, Tenzing provides geographical redundancy to its 24/7/365 technical support services. Tenzing's operations services include:
- Service Desk
- Incident and Problem Management
- Change and Configuration Management
- Service Level Management
- Availability and Continuity Management
- Capacity Management
- Information Security Services
Continual Improvement
Tenzing knows that one constant in contemporary business is change. Technology is advancing, even accelerating, at a dizzying pace. Customers may find themselves presented with opportunities or challenges they did not anticipate. Regulatory environments evolve, and real world developments affect security. The TAM is with the client every step of the way, right from the first meeting. Throughout the IT lifecycle, their commitment is to ongoing service improvement and anticipating client needs. Their goal is to minimize risk while maximizing value for the client. Through its world-class hosting infrastructure and the "Summit with Tenzing" process detailed above, Tenzing continues to deliver tangible benefits to Desato.
RESULTS
Desato couldn't emphasize enough how impressed he was with Tenzing. "We don't have to worry about anything," said Pirang, "Tenzing allows us to focus on our business." More specifically, Desato identified the following benefits and lessons from partnering with Tenzing:
Key Benefits
- Achieved even better cost effectiveness than anticipated
- Achieved shared responsibility with Tenzing for positive outcomes with end client
- Achieved a high degree of end user satisfaction with the quality of service
Key Lessons
- Focus on what you do best. By partnering with Tenzing, Desato was able to leverage its experience and enterprise-class IT infrastructure to achieve a higher quality of service and support for the ongoing generation of tens of millions of dollars of revenues for its customer without any capital investments or additional business risk. Meanwhile, Desato remained focused on what it does best: adding value to the customer at the application layer using the ATG platform.
- Look for Good Process. By working through the "Summit with Tenzing" approach to hosting business-critical Internet applications, Desato was confident the hosted ATG Ecommerce solution it presented to its large enterprise client was the right one. It addressed each business requirement in a comprehensive and cost effective way.
- People make the difference. Desato's executives and engineers appreciated a partner whom they could trust, and who was not, in their words, "big and faceless". They characterized the people they worked with at Tenzing as "fantastic" and an important part of their team.
NEXT STEPS
As the Desato-Tenzing relationship grows, opportunities for partnership on other projects have and will present themselves. Desato is now benefiting from the financial rewards of Tenzing's new Partner Program and both companies look forward to more business with each other in the future.