USE CASE GUIDE CenturyLink and Hewlett Packard Enterprise Reference Architecture Gold Partner Service Provider
CONTENTS USE CASE #1: ECOMMERCE USE CASE #2: MANUFACTURING USE CASE #3: PHARMACEUTICAL 3 6 9
Use Case #1: ecommerce Streamline the Online Shopping Experience Regardless of Traffic Volume Customers today expect a seamless shopping experience, whether in-store or online. Yet retailers struggle to deliver as 72% of consumers have encountered inconsistent experiences when using online versus in-store channels. Much of the reason for the inconsistencies stems from the complexity of the underlying IT environment. At a Glance Industry: Retail Solution: CenturyLink ecommerce solution, powered by HPE Reference Architecture Benefits: Agile and flexible environment that scales to demand while reducing CAPEX, and helps deliver a consistent user experience at all times The behind-the-scenes architecture driving the online shopping experience needs to bring together a mass of interconnected components, including web servers, ecommerce applications, network connectivity, and databases to make it all work in unison. One snag in the chain can cause trouble down the line, whether the result is an inconsistent user experience, outages during peak traffic periods, or an increased risk of attacks or breaches. One such specialty retailer of children s apparel leveraged CenturyLink s ecommerce solution to improve its uptime and overall customer experience. The Challenge Provide a Consistent and Secure User Experience 24/7 A clothing retailer recently faced an end-of-life with its current provider s data center a data center that often left them experiencing outages during spikes in key traffic periods like Cyber Monday. The complex environment required a solution that could offer not only the reliability needed to maintain an always-available shopping environment regardless of volume, but one that could also support an aggressive digital strategy in the years to come. The retailer s growing mobile and online community had big expectations for rapid, user-friendly interactions, which translated into more than 100 digital projects in the pipeline, all within the coming year alone. What was needed was a solution that could support the retailer s ongoing upgrades while continuing to serve online customers. Beyond these top-level requirements, the retailer also needed a solution that was PCI compliant, helped to reduce CAPEX, and ultimately led to a smaller overall IT budget. 3
The Solution Private Cloud + Unified Storage + MPLS + Support + Physical HPE DB Servers The answer came in the form of a robust private cloud infrastructure that provided the company with the flexibility and reliability needed to scale on demand. By having CenturyLink transition it to a scalable virtual infrastructure, based on private cloud, physical HPE DB servers, security, Unified Storage and MPLS, the retailer was successful in effectively and efficiently meeting its requirements. Key design, build, migration and management support from the consulting teams and CenturyLink s Adaptive Desk provided the support needed to offer an exceptional user experience at all times while meeting time and budget expectations. Reference Architecture The CenturyLink ecommerce Solution Powered by HPE MPLS NETWORK HAN DDOS MITIGATION FIREWALL / IDS / IPS DEDICATED SWITCHES PRIVATE CLOUD DEDICATED LOAD BALANCERS MANAGED SERVERS BACKUPS LOG MGMT IDS/IPS DATA PROTECTION DEDICATED STORAGE BLOCK FILE 4
A Scalable Virtual Infrastructure Based on Private Cloud Physical HPE DB servers Unified storage with full redundancy Security with DDoS, log management, firewall and IDS/IPS protection A network delivering maximized throughput with multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) and dedicated load balancers Support including end-user monitoring and disaster recovery coupled with key design, build, migration and management support The Benefits of a CenturyLink ecommerce Solution Flexibility and Agility Hosted data is able to scale automatically, in a linear capacity, as additional data is produced. CenturyLink has over 60 worldwide data centers and a global Tier 1 MPLS application delivery network, which connects all systems supporting ecommerce with no noticeable degradation of speed or user experience. Global Reliability for a Global Marketplace The CenturyLink cloud is optimized across the stack for high performance from premium hardware to custom performanceenhancing technologies. The CenturyLink network covers the entire continental United States and hundreds of international destinations. CenturyLink s global scale and reach provide one of the lowest-latency global Internet and network footprints. CenturyLink s extensive fiber-to-mobile towers create a faster mobile user experience. The CenturyLink network provides built-in redundancy for extra reliability, and we employ robust security across the data center, network and application levels. Lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Cloud hosting with CenturyLink removes the high cost of capital investment for infrastructure, while our experts significantly reduce time to market for an ecommerce deployment. Robust Support CenturyLink offers highly skilled and experienced resources along with a robust portfolio of consulting disciplines related to ecommerce solutions. As experts in complex, secure enterprise deployments, CenturyLink supports many of the world s leading retailers. We reduce the inherent risks by serving as a single point of contact, offering comprehensive SLAs, and providing the required PCI compliance. Key design, build, migration and management support from the consulting teams and CenturyLink s Adaptive Support Desk helps the retailer provide an exceptional user experience at all times while meeting time and budget expectations. 5
Use Case #2: Global Telco-Equipment Manufacturer Gain Momentum by Taking Mission-Critical Apps to the Cloud Enterprise-level manufacturing companies face unique challenges to keep pace with customer demands in this era of always-on, global exchanges. Downtime and latency of mission-critical applications can spell disaster for operations and can have a lasting negative impact on customer satisfaction. At a Glance Industry: Manufacturing, U.S. Solution: CenturyLink Public Cloud, powered by HPE Reference Architecture Benefits: Deploy mission-critical applications in the cloud with the speed and performance, enterpriselevel security and global availability needed with built-in automation, orchestration and management tools Legacy IT environments are often to blame for application slowdowns, holding many manufacturing companies back in terms of meeting demand and enabling growth. To this end, Gartner predicts that just 18% of all software will remain onpremise by 2017, noting that the cloud offers the flexibility and responsiveness needed for businesses to innovate and grow 1. The Challenge Managing the Demands of Today s Mission- Critical Workloads In the world of global telecommunications, there is little to no margin for downtime. One manufacturer in particular was suffering from reliability issues and unplanned outages due to an aging environment causing problems for its mission-critical application used to dispatch technicians to customer locations using dynamic scheduling and field-inventory tools. Gartner predicts that just 18% of all software will remain on-premise by 2017 1 Fixing the issues was paramount as it was catering to a user base of more than 26,000 customers that was rapidly growing due to new customer acquisitions and global expansion. The company also needed a better vehicle to help drive strategic growth plans as it looked to increase the speed of deployments. 6
The Solution CenturyLink Public Cloud + Cloud DB + Physical HPE DB Servers + Cloud Connect + Support The solution involved deploying the application on a CenturyLink Public Cloud leveraging its automation and orchestration tools, along with its ability to scale to meet the global needs of the business. Performance of the platform convinced decision makers to go with CenturyLink, as did the level of expertise and support provided by the CenturyLink Cloud Engineering team. Fixing the issues was paramount as the manufacturer was catering to a user base of more than 26,000 customers that was rapidly growing due to new customer acquisitions and global expansion. Reference Architecture The CenturyLink Cloud Powered by HPE MPLS NETWORK INTERNET CLOUD CONNECT HAN CLOUD DATABASE CUSTOMER MANAGED FIREWALL & OS DEDICATED SWITCHES COLOCATION DATABASE SERVERS DEDICATED STORAGE BLOCK FILE 7
A Scalable Public Cloud for Global Scalability, Uptime, Flexibility and Expert Support Physical HPE DB servers and colocation Shared storage and cloud DB Customer managed FW and IDS protection A network including Cloud Connect Support including blueprint creation, application monitoring and application automation Network connectivity including scalable internet connectivity and redundant connections between the public cloud and the colocation facility The Benefits of CenturyLink Cloud IT Ready Maintain insight, control and governance of the cloud using builtin advanced management, powerful admin tools, and application performance monitoring. Smooth Transition Rely on a proven platform to implement a strategy that s completely aligned with your business needs. Efficiently manage your network and cloud environment with little to no downtime using a complete suite of tools, support and products. Meet complex business demands while reducing TCO with a partner who has made a commitment to product innovation, outstanding service delivery and future footprint expansion. Single Provider Bring together world-class enterprise-oriented features you d normally have to patch together from multiple providers. Performance of the platform convinced decision makers to go with CenturyLink, as did the level of expertise and support provided by the CenturyLink Cloud Engineering team. In the world of global telecommunications, there is little to no margin for downtime. 8
Use Case #3: Drug development, delivery and supply partner A Prescription for Optimizing IT Investments The pharmaceutical and healthcare industries are facing some rather sizable hurdles from mounting costs to bring a drug to market to the data deluge that stems from the genomics revolution and the digitization of healthcare to tighter regulatory requirements from the FDA and HIPAA. At a Glance Industry: Pharmaceutical, Healthcare, U.S. Solution: CenturyLink IT Solutions, powered by HPE Reference Architecture Benefits: IT solutions with the integrated support, compliance and transparency needed so that you can focus on your core business All of these challenges plus a great deal more lead to an almost perfect storm of IT challenges for drug and healthcare manufacturers. Striking the fine balance between availability, security and scalability often becomes too much for internal IT teams. Going it alone can take precious resources away from more strategic initiatives. That s why one of the world s numberone drug development, delivery and supply partners turned to CenturyLink for help. The Challenge Manage a High-Demand IT Environment While Growing the Business The drug development, delivery and supply partner was having difficulties keeping its IT infrastructure and applications up and running. Daily operations and maintenance issues were preventing this global industry leader from being able to focus on expanding its business through acquisitions and IPO filings. Going it alone takes precious resources away from more strategic initiatives. The company s current environment suffered from nearly daily outages and didn t offer proper visibility into the infrastructure to effectively handle the issues. It also lacked effective escalation and incident management tools. What the manufacturer needed was a platform with greater reliability, transparency, clear SLAs, and compliance to help meet FDA regulations. 9
The Solution CenturyLink Colocation + RIM + Private Cloud + Dedicated Servers + DBA + PMO + Physical HPE DB Servers All services were deployed behind a global service desk to provide addition, CenturyLink provided private cloud and dedicated servers 24/7 support up to the application level. Remote infrastructure for applications needing to be re-platformed. Migration support, management of the company s hardware was provided in application management and project management (PMO) staffing the CenturyLink data center and across seven locations, all services, including GMP-compliance support, helped keep the interconnected via a secure CenturyLink MPLS network. In business on track and compliant while meeting strategic initiatives. Reference Architecture The CenturyLink IT Solution Powered by HPE SECURE MPLS NETWORK INTERNET HAN VPN CLIENT VPN FIREWALL / IDS / IPS DEDICATED SWITCHES PRIVATE CLOUD MANAGED SERVERS COLOCATION BACKUPS DATA PROTECTION SHARED STORAGE BLOCK FILE 10
An Integrated IT Offering with Round-the-Clock Global Service, Compliance and Transparency Agility through private cloud, managed servers and colocation Protection against data loss with shared storage and backups Rock-solid security backed by network firewalls, client VPN, intrusion detection and prevention services and dedication compliance management personnel Physical HPE DB servers A business-ready network including secure MPLS and dedicated switching Global support including application management, global service desk, remote monitoring and advanced staffing The Benefits of CenturyLink IT Outsourcing, Powered by HPE Solutions One Solution A single, responsible party helps ensure you are secure with your services, so that you can save time and money. Partnerships with market leaders like HPE, ensure best-of-breed solutions for your business needs. Savings One low, monthly cost helps eliminate inefficiencies while avoiding the need for up-front capital investments. Migration support, application management and PMO staffing services, including GMP-compliance support, helped keep the business on track and compliant while meeting strategic initiatives. Focused Expertise By letting someone else take care of your IT infrastructure, you can focus on running your core business. About CenturyLink Business CenturyLink, Inc. is the third largest telecommunications company in the United States. Headquartered in Monroe, LA, CenturyLink is an S&P 500 company and is included among the Fortune 500 list of America s largest corporations. CenturyLink Business delivers innovative private and public networking and managed services for global businesses on virtual, dedicated and colocation platforms. It is a global leader in data and voice networks, cloud infrastructure and hosted IT solutions for enterprise business customers. Gold Partner Service Provider For more information visit http://info.centurylinkforbusiness.com/hpcontactus.html 1. http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2923217 2015 CenturyLink. All Rights Reserved. The CenturyLink mark, pathways logo and certain CenturyLink product names are the property of CenturyLink. All other marks are the property of their respective owners. Services not available everywhere. Business customers only. CenturyLink may change or cancel services or substitute similar services at its sole discretion without notice. 753120715 - centurylink-hewlett-packard-enterprise-reference-architecture-hp-use-case-guide-cm151023