GRIDtoday Logo UD

DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY /

   ( Table of Contents )   

Applications:

OPSWARE HELPS INFLOW TO ACCELERATE BUSINESS, INCREASE REVENUE

Inflow, a leading provider of outsourced technology services, today unveiled that it has successfully expanded its managed hosting business through development of its iServerCare management solution. This new solution already has resulted in strategic customer acquisitions, increased revenues, and improved service margins via Opsware Inc's IT automation software.

Using Opsware, Inflow has achieved:

  • Industry leading server-to-system administrator ratios: Inflow is now managing over 600 servers with three dedicated staff members; an impressive 200 to 1 server-to-administrator ratio.
  • Greater service quality and security: Using Opsware, Inflow lowered its "mean time to restore" for servers from three or four hours to a record low of 30 minutes.
  • Improved security, via reduced time to patch servers: Inflow secures its customers' servers using Opsware's automated patching capabilities, which allows them to patch 600 servers in less than three hours.

After a detailed technical evaluation, the company chose Opsware over two other technology providers, based on Opsware's deep operational expertise resulting from its Loudcloud managed services provider origins, the Opsware platform's ability to integrate rapidly with new and existing IT management systems and its strong customer base.


Web services, utility computing, .NET, CPU harvesting and distributed computing are just a few of the technologies that fall under the Grid computing umbrella. Gt04 -- a premiere enterprise Grid computing conference targeting industrial and commercial users -- will gather experts, and outline strategies and road maps for Grid deployment. For more information, visit www.gt04.com.

Grid computing is here!


In selecting Opsware, Inflow was seeking to enhance its service delivery model to enable high-margin, high-value application hosting and management services, such as iServerCare, while lowering its cost structure and improving overall service quality for customers. A key component of Inflow's service transformation was the ability to scale its business without adding incremental staff to solely support these new services. Opsware helped Inflow to successfully capture its largest account while maintaining existing staffing levels. Without Opsware's automation software, Inflow estimated it would need to expand the operations staff supporting this customer by 300 percent.

"Without Opsware, we would not be able to offer the seamless high-value server management solutions demanded by our customers," said Lenny Monsour, general manager of Inflow Hosting and Infrastructure Services. "Using Opsware as the underlying automation platform for our managed hosting business allows us to automate our customers' entire server and application lifecycle, with a dramatically lower cost structure and with higher quality and reliability."

"Opsware was the original platform for our own managed service business, so we understand Inflow's need to provide the highest level of service quality while keeping costs down," said Ben Horowitz, chief executive officer for Opsware. "Opsware enables Inflow's IT staff to spend less hands-on time in their server room and more time providing strategic value to their customers."

Opsware continues to lead the way in IT automation and utility computing. The growth of the Internet and move to Web-based computing is creating huge growth in the number of servers and applications in data centers, resulting in massive complexity that renders traditional, manual operations unsustainable. Automation has become a necessity as IT organizations seek to become more cost-competitive, reduce data center complexity and offer higher-value services.

( Top of Page )

   ( Table of Contents )