VMware | Bluetowne - Information Technology Confidence

May 5, 2017

Taco Boy Partners with Bluetowne For Advanced Network Design and Ongoing Managed Services

“It is critically important to us to have a go to partner that answers when we pick up the phone to call them about a problem. Every time we contact Bluetowne – at any time of day or on the weekends – they respond. Bluetowne also takes a proactive approach to our relationship, making recommendations to constantly help our business progress. We place a lot of stock in that kind of value engineering, and know that we don’t just have a provider, but a partner for the long haul.” – Director of Operations | Owner, Taco Boy

THE CLIENT

Taco Boy is a local, authentic Taqueria/Cantina serving tacos with innovative fillings, frozen cocktails and other delicious menu items in a funky, vibrant setting. Taco Boy currently has two locations, with one on the upper peninsula in downtown Charleston, SC and the other on Folly Beach. A third location is currently in the works and slated to open soon in Summerville, SC.

THE CHALLENGE

Taco Boy is a fast-paced environment that serves a heavy volume of patrons at each of its locations, and downtime due to technology hiccups or waiting for an IT issue to be resolved is not an option, as it translates to frustration and lost revenue. Taco Boy knew they needed a partner with a reputation not only for innovative solutions that drive better business outcomes, but for remarkable customer service and lightening fast response times. Taco Boy also needed a solution to store, manage and back-up their critical data, and the ability to access this information from any location.Read More

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September 1, 2016

Bluetowne Achieves VMware Academic Specialization

MT. PLEASANT, S.C. – September 1, 2016 – Bluetowne, a leading provider of innovative information technology solutions, today announced it has renewed its VMware Academic Specialization—an acknowledgement given to VMware partners who show exceptional understanding of the academic market and VMware academic programs. With the VMware Academic Specialization, Bluetowne also has access to unique Academic SKUs, competitive pricing, and market information. VMware’s Academic Specialization further enables Bluetowne to provide increased alignment with the VMware Academic sales teams, and ultimately provide a higher level of satisfaction to Academic customers.Read More

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April 20, 2016

Bluetowne Attains VMware IaaS Powered Status in the VMware vCloud Air Network

MT. PLEASANT, S.C. – April 20, 2016 – Bluetowne, a leading provider of innovative information technology solutions, today announced its entry into the VMware vCloud® Air™ Network, with BlueCloud, a VMware IaaS Powered service. This designation illustrates to customers that the company’s public cloud service is validated using and compatible for use with VMware vSphere®, the leading virtualization platform for building cloud infrastructures.

A member of the VMware vCloud Air Network, Bluetowne provides its VMware IaaS Powered service using proven VMware technology that organizations already use in their existing data centers. VMware vCloud Air Network Service Providers offer global cloud services in more than 100 countries.Read More

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Bluetowne Blog, Case Studies, Tech Talk

February 12, 2016

The GEL Group Partners With Bluetowne to Increase Performance and Position Company for Future Growth

“The level of knowledge is what attracted us to Bluetowne—they delivered solid consulting and offered clear direction to help us solve our business challenges. Watching my colleagues’ responses and seeing them get excited when Bluetowne was presenting a solution was a good barometer for me that we chose the right partner.” – James Westmoreland, Director, Radio Chemistry Division, The GEL Group

THE CLIENT
The GEL Group (GEL) is a leading analytical laboratory, engineering and consulting company. Since 1981, GEL has provided a unique breadth of analytical testing, environmental consulting, civil engineering and geophysical engineering services that meet high standards of quality and accuracy to a broad and enduring client base.

THE CHALLENGE
Prior to engaging Bluetowne, GEL’s biggest challenge was the diversity and legacy of the systems that they manage—and the ability to handle the accelerated change in the industry. Due to support expirations and feature enhancements within VMware products, GEL knew it was imperative that they complete an upgrade in an effort to stay current and realize the full potential of their infrastructure. GEL was also experiencing scalability issues with their storage—the current raid configuration and storage capacity was not poised for future growth. GEL knew that they needed to employ a trusted technology advisor from the start to ensure that the end result was a reliable infrastructure that would scale as the business continued to grow.

THE SOLUTION
Bluetowne partnered with GEL to assist with two different project implementations to help address their challenges. The first was to complete a successful upgrade on their current VMware infrastructure from version 3.5 to 5.1. The environment consisted of building a new vCenter and upgrading 3 hosts, while using iSCSI as the connectivity to shared SAN storage. The second project involved replacing the existing SAN environment with a new EMC VNX5200 array and migrating all existing data to the new environment, while keeping in line with the iSCSI infrastructure.

THE RESULT
The VMware upgrade project allowed GEL to take advantage of the renewed support by VMware, and all of the enhanced features offered in version 5.1. Some of those features included SSO, thin provisioning, centralized license management in vCenter, iSCSI binding, storage VMotion within the GUI, and much more. When GEL completed the storage refresh project the following year, they not only received a best-in-the-market SAN, but they were now able to realize vast improvements in performance, as well as the ability to scale the EMC VNX5200 to meet the demands of future growth.

Download PDF version here.

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