Case Studies On Cloud & Managed Services

The Challenges

For nearly a decade, the company relied on an in-house ERP solution. Recently, the server infrastructure became increasingly unstable, jeopardizing resilience and availability. The potential for extended downtime, possibly lasting up to days, and the risk of data loss due to backup failures posed major threats to their operations. Replacing the infrastructure represented a substantial capital expenditure. Furthermore, maintaining the existing system placed a heavy burden on IT staff, requiring specialized expertise and continuous updates, potentially diverting them from strategic initiatives.

The Solution

With the majority of the ERP system’s users located in China, OptimaTech proposed a comprehensive solution to address these challenges by migrating the ERP server to Alibaba Cloud, one of the largest cloud service providers in China. This migration offered the potential for increased availability, reliability and scalability.

OptimaTech’s service encompassed the following key elements:

• Cloud Migration Service: The complete migration of the ERP server to the Alibaba Cloud platform was executed outside of business hours to ensure minimal disruption to daily operations. This includes solution design, detailed planning, data migration, application testing, and go-live support.
• Cloud Snapshot: Regular snapshots of the cloud server were implemented. These snapshots create point-in-time copies of the server’s data and configuration, enabling rapid recovery in case of data loss, corruption, or system failure. This significantly improves disaster recovery capabilities and reduces downtime.
• Secure Connectivity: A secure VPN tunnel was established between the company’s headquarters and the Alibaba Cloud platform, guaranteeing secure and reliable access to the ERP system for internal users. This ensures data confidentiality and integrity.
• Enhanced Offsite Backup and Disaster Recovery: Leveraging the customer’s existing offsite NAS for additional backup protection provides an extra layer of security and disaster recovery capabilities. This multi-layered approach ensures business continuity.
• Proactive Monitoring and Management: Ongoing remote monitoring of the cloud services and the VPN tunnel, with proactive notifications, ensures maximum uptime and reliability. OptimaTech’s managed services include incident response, problem identification and resolution, security patching, and performance optimization. These outsourced services greatly reduce in-house IT burdens, and optimized system performance. This allowed the client to focus on their core business while benefiting from expert, efficient IT management.

The Results

The customer expressed high satisfaction with OptimaTech’s service and the successful migration of their ERP system. The transition to the Alibaba Cloud platform resulted in a significantly more stable and reliable ERP environment. Specifically:

• Improved System Availability and Resilience: The cloud-based infrastructure delivered consistently high system availability and enhanced resilience, minimizing disruptions to critical business processes.
• Reduced IT Burden: By outsourcing IT management to OptimaTech, the client’s internal staff can now focus on core business development initiatives, rather than day-to-day IT operations.
• Enhanced Security: The secure VPN and offsite backup strategy protect sensitive data and ensure business continuity. OptimaTech’s proactive patch management, in conjunction with Alibaba Cloud Security Center’s real-time threat detection, vulnerability assessments, and compliance monitoring, swiftly addressed vulnerabilities and pre-emptively mitigated potential security threats. This comprehensive approach ensured data confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
• Scalability: The cloud platform provides the flexibility to scale resources as needed, accommodating future growth.

Based on the success of this project, the customer is now planning to outsource additional IT workloads to OptimaTech, including file server migration, website development and hosting, and remote management services for their local IT infrastructure.