The College Network, a provider of online education programs through distance learning, has chosen EarthLink as an IT and managed services provider (MSP). The company is deploying a customized cloud hosting and dedicated server solution for The College Network, which will be used for its scalable, replicated database that is used to run its core business applications.
The Earthlink services are being used to run a variety of applications, including customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP), as well as file and utility servers, a customer registration system and a content delivery system. The solutions are used to offer online associate, bachelors and masters degrees as well as professional certificates from a variety of universities.
The College Network employs a small IT team to support growing infrastructure, including 200 employees and 150 independent contractors throughout the country. The team had been struggling to stay on top of technology issues and wasted a majority of their time troubleshooting hardware problems. The IT team was responsible for managing around 115 servers, which were all connected to storage area networks (SANs).
The College Network's CIO, Ryan Sallee, evaluated several MSPs and chose Earthlink. The provider designed a custom solution for the company, comprised of cloud hosting and dedicated servers. The setup went well beyond regular disaster recovery plans to include a business continuity structure featuring multi-path connectivity between the company's headquarters and EarthLink's data center.
Core business applications at The College Network are now hosted in a clustered configuration at Earthlink. The setup features a mirrored registration system to ensure reliability and fast performance when customers sign on. This has resulted in a reduction in capital expenses since SAN upgrades, which can cost several hundred thousand dollars, are avoided. The College Network has also been able to reallocate its small IT team to focus on activities that bring greater value to the company, since Earthlink now handles support for all its systems.
"With the EarthLink solution, we have significantly upgraded our infrastructure and availability of mission-critical systems, which makes people more efficient, processes easier, data availability higher and customer satisfaction better," said Sallee. "This implementation was a huge win for our company, as you can't put a price on the systems availability. That's the value of an IT services provider, and with EarthLink — I sleep better at night."
"A big part of EarthLink's role in virtualization is taking the burden of infrastructure management off of the client's plate so they can focus on higher-value contributions to their bottom line," said Michael D. Toplisek, executive vice president of sales and marketing at Earthlink. "In addition to increased reliability and performance, The College Network's IT team will have the bandwidth to more proactively address business challenges and provide solutions."
Edited by
Brooke Neuman
