SecureKloud Azure Solution takes care of their storage and computation challenges efficiently
About the Client
Our Client is India’s first and largest stem cell bank. With state-of-the-art laboratories at Chennai & Gurgaon and a network spread over 200 service centers in the country & footprints in GCC countries, the company is the most accredited stem cell bank with certifications from national and international organizations for standards. With the vision to become the world’s largest stem cell solutions provider with the largest repository of lifesaving stem cell assets they have come long way since its founding days.
The Challenge
AX & related software solutions are a critical part of the stem cell-system workflow for many organizations and for our client it is the backbone for their IT. Previously, they relied on multiple IT centers and collaborated with different vendors to support their software solutions. However, this approach led to major challenges. For example, certain activities required more compute and storage capacity at certain hours of the day. They spend approximately 12 hours per day processing at peak capacity. During the remaining hours per day, as well as weekends, they were processing significantly off-peak, while still having to manage, maintain, and pay for the underlying unused compute environment during those times. In true sense, they lacked the ability to efficiently support that ebb and flow associated with our various workloads. Another requirement from the Client also included agility to develop, deploy and test new applications faster. With existing way of operating the ability to adequately support their developers was not where it needed to be. The time and cost of getting this huge infrastructure up, tested and running was estimated to exceed any reasonable timeframe and budget. This is when they quickly realized that they needed to take a different approach. After spending a while on strategizing, their IT team decided that moving to the cloud was the best way to address its challenges.
Solution
Windows Azure Virtual Machines provided the solution sought by the client and it enables instant access and provisioning of virtual servers for installing and configuring AX based on custom needs and design. As their applications run on clusters of Windows Azure Virtual Machines it also uses variety of other Azure services to orchestrate their automation, business continuity and DevTest. They also use quite a few Azure PaaS Services which helps the organization operate and scale its IT infrastructure without needing to acquire and provide server’s months in advance. Windows Azure Virtual Machines made it possible to quickly create the development and testing environment essential to the client’s successful deployment of AX. The expected multi month window to set up the development and testing environment for a system of this size was reduced to weeks and this enabled a huge savings not only in time, but in costs as well. With AX running across its Windows Azure Virtual Machines enabled network, they saw immediate benefits and ROI in four key areas:
There were no longer any resource limits. All environments can be scaled down, or even removed completely and recreated, when needed
Because of virtualization and automation, physical servers and the time to acquire and provision them were no longer necessary. A whole server, including the installation and configuration of all software components on the server can be scripted. A complete AX application can be fully automated and ready in just a few hours, not weeks
With Azure’s “pay-as-you-go” structure, resources can be switched on and off as needed to save money. Moreover, when additional capacity is needed for scale and load testing over short periods of time, these units can be brought in with only the actual usage time billable
Under Azure, a virtual machine is exactly as same as a virtual machine on Windows Server. It can be freely moved between on-premise physical servers, servers at a company’s hosting providers, Windows Azure, and back again as need
About SecureKloud
