EarthLink, Inc. and partner Broadleaf Services recently teamed to deliver a managed colocation solution and professional services to travel luggage giant Samsonite LLC. The companies worked together to help transform Samsonite's IT infrastructure, migrating all of its North American IT operations to EarthLink's SSAE 16 SOC 2 compliant data center.
Samsonite was seeking a national provider for a fully managed colocation solution that could help them migrate to the cloud as well as an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solution. The customized solution from EarthLink and Broadleaf features professional services to conduct the migration of Samsonite's physical IT assets to the EarthLink data center, as well as ongoing consulting in regards to capacity planning.
Other managed services will include server and storage utilization consulting to ensure the luggage company's IT environment is sized properly and running at peak efficiency. Samsonite reports that so far, EarthLink's Managed Services have reduced the personnel resources and time the company's in-house IT staff needs to manage its infrastructure.
"We sought a solid relationship with a service provider willing to help us fulfill our long-term objective of building an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) environment and move to the cloud in the future," said Bill Morrison, director of IT Americas for Samsonite LLC.
He added, "When Broadleaf recommended EarthLink, we were very impressed with their data center in Marlborough, MA, which is located near our U.S. headquarters. EarthLink and Broadleaf's professional services and engineering expertise made the migration to the data center incredibly smooth. With server and data center management off our plate, I can now assign my IT team to more strategic projects that will help our company innovate and grow."
According to Ted Lambert, vice president of Sales at Broadleaf, Samsonite wanted a true partnership with a managed service provider (MSP). The company were also looking for a provider that could deliver high service levels in support of long-term growth, as well as someone would continuously communicate with their in-house IT team.
"As Samsonite grows, they want the partnership to flourish and for EarthLink to provide additional services when needed," said Lambert. "EarthLink understood Samsonite's vision, developed the long- and short-term solutions and executed a near seamless data center migration. EarthLink also provided a business continuity solution to protect the IT environment during the migration phase."
Edited by
Jamie Epstein
