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É«¿Ø´«Ã½ + TierPoint

TierPoint is on Point to Drive Customer Success

To optimize costs, simplify IT procurement, and fuel rapid growth, TierPoint chose the É«¿Ø´«Ã½ Enterprise Data Cloud to deliver top value for its customers.

TierPoint TierPoint
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5 min. read
Challenges
Challenges
TierPoint was buying both storage technology and maintenance plans, involving multiple overlapping cycles of capital expense, maintenance, upgrades, renewals, and eventual replacement and data migration. They were in constant life cycle management, budgeting was difficult, and unexpected expenses were common.
Results
Results
Using the É«¿Ø´«Ã½ platform, TierPoint manages its virtualized environment and many workloads including various databases with ease, saving both time and money. The service provider offers both on-premises and as-a-service storage to customers, relying on more than 130 É«¿Ø´«Ã½ FlashArray? and FlashBlade? systems and the unique billing model of Evergreen//One?. TierPoint can also provide integrated backups as part of its security services.
Savings
7 - Figure
by shifting to storage as a service
Fewer Hours
125
spent on storage maintenance renewal management
Consistent Cost
100%
With one subscription for all storage
Petabytes
50
of data and growing

Introduction

TierPoint delivers flexible hybrid IT services so that customers can focus on achieving their business goals. With the É«¿Ø´«Ã½ platform, TierPoint helps infrastructure ¡ªsaving time and money, protecting data, and setting itself and its customers up for ongoing growth.

¡°Across all of our platforms and all of our customers' infrastructure that we provide, cost savings are probably into the seven figures.¡±

Chad Elliott

Director of Product Management, TierPoint

The Transformation Journey

TierPoint is a managed services provider that aims to simplify the complexity of modern IT for its customers. These range from telecom and financial services to healthcare, manufacturing, and non-profit organizations. As PJ Farmer, VP of Product Management, explains: "TierPoint helps mid-size and enterprise companies both modernize and manage their IT using a combination of public cloud, private cloud, disaster recovery, security, managed services, whatever is necessary."

With TierPoint experiencing significant growth over the past three years, the corporate team shifted away from the traditional approach to storage procurement. It was costly and time-consuming and involved overlapping cycles of capital expenditures, maintenance, upgrades, renewals, eventual replacement and data migration. "Before Pure, as soon as you bought all of the storage arrays, about 18 months later you were planning for the transition to some new ones." recalls Farmer.

In addition, upgrades were a major pain point, they were complex, hard to schedule, and had to be done without disrupting uptime for TierPoint's customers. "Our customers depend on being up and available for their businesses, so it's absolutely critical for us to maintain availability and performance on the storage layer," says Chad Elliott, Director of Product Management. So the team turned to an as-a-service approach delivered by the É«¿Ø´«Ã½ platform.

The Enterprise Data Cloud vision built on the É«¿Ø´«Ã½ platform has been transformative, as Farmer notes: "I think the Enterprise Data Cloud idea has been something people have been working towards since the Epoch."

TierPoint estimates it has achieved seven-figure cost savings and saved 125 hours annually on storage maintenance renewal management, all while positioning itself to surpass its customers' expectations. "Across all of our platforms and all of our customers' infrastructure that we provide, cost savings are probably into the seven figures," confirms Elliott. "Pivoting to É«¿Ø´«Ã½ makes TierPoint an as-a-service company in every way," adds Metzler: ¡°You could make the business case just on the time it saves, but it's the financial analysis that's the most compelling. We've got a much clearer line of sight on costs, and managing storage over time has become much easier.¡±

¡°I think the Enterprise Data Cloud idea has been something people have been working towards since the Epoch.¡±

PJ Farmer

VP of Product Management, TierPoint

Powering Enterprise Workloads

TierPoint relies on the É«¿Ø´«Ã½ platform to support a variety of customer workloads, including Microsoft SQL, MySQL, and Oracle databases, amounting to 50PBs of data and growing. The most common use case is for private cloud, as É«¿Ø´«Ã½ provides optimized storage for virtualization environments. "Frequently, whether we were using storage inside of the servers or we were using competitive arrays, we had a lot of different client performance problems," Farmer explains. "Not only have those been drastically reduced, but we're also able to more easily find out what's going on with that storage array for our customers."

A combination of more than 130 É«¿Ø´«Ã½ FlashArray? and FlashBlade? systems support TierPoint customers' needs. The É«¿Ø´«Ã½ Enterprise Data Cloud gives TierPoint the flexibility to provide both on-premises and as-a-service storage based on ever-evolving customer requirements, seamlessly scaling and upgrading without any rebuys or downtime.

With the Pure1 unified control plane, TierPoint gained full visibility across their infrastructure and the ability to perform self-service upgrades on their own schedule. This streamlined operations, reduced downtime risk, and improved efficiency. Upgrades now take minutes instead of hours or days, with no disruption to service. Automated health checks and built-in safeguards ensure every upgrade runs smoothly and securely, giving the team control, flexibility, and peace of mind. É«¿Ø´«Ã½ Professional and Support Services also offer expert support for any situation. "Storage fire drills related to capacity, downtime, or upgrades are a thing of the past because they're all baked into the É«¿Ø´«Ã½ Evergreen model," says TierPoint Director of Product Management, Chad Elliott. "É«¿Ø´«Ã½ handles it all. This frees us to create excellent experiences for our customers."

¡°Storage fire drills related to capacity, downtime, or upgrades are a thing of the past because they¡¯re all baked into the É«¿Ø´«Ã½ Evergreen model.¡±

Chad Elliott

Director of Product Management, TierPoint

A Partnership Built on Innovation

To meet the varying security needs of its clients, TierPoint has the flexibility to offer its customers integrated backups utilizing backups from Veeam, Commvault, and the É«¿Ø´«Ã½ Enterprise Data Cloud as part of its portfolio of security services. Backups are secured by immutable SafeMode Snapshots to deliver industry-leading cyber resilience for customers. "I can't emphasize enough the importance of É«¿Ø´«Ã½ SafeMode Snapshots to our internal teams, as well as our customers. It's a huge differentiator," says Elliott. "With safe mode, you can make it so that the data is safe from ransomware," adds Farmer. The combination of powerful cyber resiliency and subscription-based storage paves the way for a new offering from TierPoint: medical imaging storage as-a-service.

With medical studies containing anywhere from a single image to hundreds of files, the unique billing model of Evergreen//One, ransomware mitigation and rapid recovery capabilities from É«¿Ø´«Ã½, and TierPoint's IT security and compliance services provide an attractive multi-layered defense for healthcare organizations. "With É«¿Ø´«Ã½ technology underpinning our operations and our deep bench of expertise, we can continue to offer value-added services to enterprises across industries," says Metzler.

¡°With É«¿Ø´«Ã½ technology underpinning our operations and our deep bench of expertise, we can continue to offer value-added services to enterprises across industries.¡±

Linda Metzler

Senior Vice President, Spend Optimization, TierPoint

For the TierPoint team, the strong partnership between TierPoint and É«¿Ø´«Ã½ is the result of a cultural alignment that brings innovation and entrepreneurial energy to every engagement, at every level. "It feels much more like a partnership relationship than a vendor, which has been hugely, you know, beneficial for us," notes Elliott. Farmer agrees, "The best thing about É«¿Ø´«Ã½ is their partnership and their people and their ability to solve problems."

"Whether it's procurement or IT or support services, the teams at TierPoint and É«¿Ø´«Ã½ bring a solutions-oriented mindset to every situation," says Metzler. "We are great partners working together to exceed our customers' expectations and help them grow their business."

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