AWS Case Study: Datapipe and Villas Caribe
Datapipe provides cloud computing, infrastructure as a service, platform as a service, colocation and data centers, empowering clients with a solution to efficiently manage their mission-critical IT operations. Since its establishment in 1998, Datapipe has evolved into a global company, deploying solutions from office locations in some of the world’s most influential business markets—including the Metropolitan New York area, Silicon Valley, London, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. The company’s products traverse multiple industries, as evidenced by its client base of companies in finance, health care, pharmaceutical, information technology, telecommunications, advertising, retail, social networking, government, and media/entertainment. Effective management of IT services is achieved through cloud computing, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), co-location, and data centers.
In November 2010, Datapipe launched Managed Cloud, a product specifically designed for Amazon Web Services (AWS). Intended to fill the gap for companies who wish to migrate to AWS but who have concerns about managing a cloud environment—as well as governance, billing, and service level agreements (SLAs) —the product simplifies management and fortifies financial control through a single pane view of the infrastructure. Perhaps the most valuable advantage is the capability of clients to control and hold costs to customized SLAs.
The core of Managed Cloud is an all-inclusive suite of managed services that provides the tools for architecture and design, fork lifting, continuous (24 x 7 x 365) technician-based monitoring and management, patching and operating system management, and change management. For enhanced cloud infrastructure design, Datapipe’s Managed Cloud also includes a suite of cloud accelerators. The accelerator components comprise a server access manager for Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), an email relay, a global load balancer for multi-site Domain Name Systems (DNS), and a Web application accelerator for dynamic content caching.
A variety of components make up the Managed Cloud solution. The foundation is built on Datapipe custom-rolled PVGrub Ubuntu 10.04 EBS AMI. The next layer is Chef, which is used to download cookbooks for installing Apache, PHP, configuring additional tools, and mounting an Amazon Elastic Block Storage (Amazon EBS) volume with code from custom files. Static content is uploaded and stored on Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), built with custom code from the Amazon Web Services (AWS) PHP Library. Amazon S3 integration is achieved through AWS Software Development Kits (SDKs) for PHP. Lastly, multi-zone Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) to MySQL is used and Amazon Elastic Load Balancing (Amazon ELB) distributes incoming traffic across instances.
Datapipe recently teamed up with Villas Caribe, a company that specializes in renting luxury villas throughout the Caribbean, Mexico, Hawaii, and Costa Rica. Upon learning of the all-inclusive Managed Cloud solution, the rental company approached Datapipe for assistance in smoothly migrating to AWS. Villas Caribe believed that Datapipe’s Managed Cloud offered the best prospect of a seamless transition to AWS while ensuring the performance and reliability of its IT infrastructure. Villas Caribe was not disappointed. Bobby Gibson, CEO of Villas Caribe, explains: “The service has been impeccable. The migration was seamless, and we’ve already realized great value from their hands-on, proactive management coupled with the scale afforded by AWS.”
The Villas Caribe transition to cloud computing has been highly successful because AWS provides the capability to scale both Web and database instances during critical peaks. The ability to stop an instance and replace it with a new instance type in minutes saves the company from complete failure during extreme traffic spikes. Cloud computing offers significant cost and time savings compared to physical servers. Replacing a physical server takes at least six man-hours—to test new hardware, rack, configure, and possibly migrate data. Gibson elaborates: “With our online storeand virtual tours at the heart of our business, our success is directly tied to the efficiency and performance of our IT environment. We knew that AWS offered greater efficiency and flexibility that could reduce our total cost of ownership (TCO).”
Datapipe, Villas Caribe, and Amazon Web Services. A superior partnership. A win-win position for all.
To learn more, visit http://www.datapipe.com/ 
and http://www.villascaribe.com./ .
Added April 13, 2011
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