By Insight Editor / 2 Jul 2020 / Topics: Modern workplace Microsoft Azure Data center
Facts at a glance
Client industry:
Natural gas and oil
Size of company:
500 employees
Challenge:
Bonavista Energy’s IT leadership wanted to be less beholden to aging on-premises infrastructure and eliminate as much of the company’s physical data center footprint as possible.
Solution:
Insight worked with the internal IT team to gain executive buy-in for a zero data center initiative that included moving the majority of workloads to Microsoft Azure.
Results:
- Project completed on-time and on-budget
- Eliminated risk of availability concerns due to cooling and power issues
- Starting initiative to optimize the Azure investment
Set on a goal of growth and efficiency, the internal IT team at Bonavista Energy looked to optimize the company’s current IT infrastructure. Bonavista Energy had a large data center footprint with aging equipment, as well as a difficult on-premises cooling infrastructure that was contributing to availability concerns.
It was a problem that desperately needed to be fixed; However, Jack Scown, director of IT at Bonavista, quickly realized his team needed a knowledgeable partner to help complete the initiative. So, throughout the engagement, Bonavista and Insight teammates worked side-by-side to achieve the company’s goals.
Prior to this engagement, Bonavista had employed Stratiform IT Services in the past and had developed a valued relationship with its contacts there. The company was so pleased with the previous work done by Stratiform that when it looked to undertake this IT transformation, it automatically turned to that partner. As a subsidiary of PCM, Insight acquired Stratiform in mid-2019, adding our considerable data center transformation expertise and resources to the company’s portfolio.
This combination of skillsets meant that Bonavista was even more eager to work with Insight’s transformation team.
To achieve its goal of being freed of on-site infrastructure — and the associated risks — Bonavista’s IT leaders decided to push for a zero data center initiative and migrate a vast majority of the company’s workloads to Microsoft Azure. However, the team needed to build a business case in order to gain the support of its executive leadership.
The team from Insight immediately stepped in to help. Alongside the client’s internal team, we performed a Cloud Strategy Roadmap, assessing the current environment and discovering which workloads could — and should — be moved to the cloud.
“We were in this together,” said Scown, “architecting not only the technical elements, but also really considering the goals and opportunities for the business. Because of this alignment, this was a true partner relationship versus just a vendor relationship. [Insight] served as a capable advisor that helped shape the understanding of where Bonavista was going.”
After co-presenting with Bonavista’s internal IT leaders to their executives and gaining sign-off for the project, Insight and Bonavista’s teams went ahead with the zero data center initiative and Azure migration. Throughout, we worked with multiple other vendors in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and security spaces to find the best solutions for the client.
In the end, the project wrapped up on-time and on-budget, hitting every checkbox for Bonavista’s executive and IT teams.
“We couldn’t have imagined it going any better than it has,” said Scown. “There was some difficulty of course, but we worked through it together — no finger pointing, just solution finding.”
Now that the zero data center initiative has come to fruition, Scown and his team are looking on to next steps. This includes optimizing the care and maintenance of the new infrastructure, as well as reducing cost and managing the new hybrid environment. Insight is already exploring more ways we can help the company optimize its new Azure environment in order to maximize its investment.
Once the next phase is completed, the Bonavista team is prepared to explore more ways to embrace digital transformation with Insight’s Digital Innovation solution area.
“As we’ve worked together, we’ve built the understanding that we’re not just working with another vendor — we’re partners. We can trust that [Insight] is only going to thoughtfully present options that are truly good for our business,” said Scown.
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