nClouds AWS Case Study
Transport4
Driving Efficiency in Petroleum Distribution:
How nClouds Elevated Transport4 with AWS
“Our uptime has improved significantly due to being in the cloud. We can patch our entire site without having to go offline. We used to have to go offline at least once a month; now not all.”
— Tim Hainey —
Vice President of Infrastructure, Transport4
Benefits Summary
Cost Savings
Higher Flexibility Through Cloud Infrastructure
Safeguards Against On-Premises Outages
About Transport4
Transport4, self-described as the “Orbitz for the Oil Industry,” provides a cost-effective, reliable, and secure software solution for carriers and their customers distributing petroleum products across the United States.
Its platform enables petroleum suppliers to manage product movement across state lines, schedule shipping, monitor confirmations, and receive custody tickets for accounting.
Industry
Location
Alpharetta, Georgia
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Challenge
Escaping On-Premises Limitations for Scalability and Reliability
As its contract with a previous hosting provider neared expiration, Transport4’s vice president of infrastructure, Tim Hainey, recognized the critical need to evaluate alternatives for managing the company’s IT infrastructure.
The cost-effectiveness, scalability, and reliability of public cloud infrastructure like Amazon Web Services (AWS) presented a highly attractive alternative compared to its existing provider’s limitations.
Transport4’s concern was rooted in their small base of only two servers in its data centers, which posed a significant threat to availability in the event of an outage.
Hainey noted, “We only had two servers sitting there [in the data center]; if we lost both of those, we were completely down. Now in Amazon, even if we lost 100 servers, we’d still be up and running since we can move around in their environment.“
What began as a logistical inconvenience had evolved into a business threat, potentially impacting its ability to deliver services to customers.
Strategy and Solution
Seamless AWS Migration and Ongoing Managed Services with nClouds
Migration to AWS
After thorough research, Transport4 chose nClouds for its managed services on AWS, recognizing it as the optimal combination of price and service. nClouds ensured a smooth transition, successfully completing Transport4’s migration to AWS in November 2014.
Planning and Build
nClouds’ architectural services team played a crucial role during the initial planning and build phases, designing and deploying VPCs, customer VPNs, multiregion connectivity, and the server, storage, and email infrastructure.
Postmigration
Postmigration, the managed services team provided testing, quality assurance, and ongoing support for all associated environments and services. Any minor challenges encountered were successfully resolved with nClouds’ assistance.
Results + Benefits
Significant Cost Savings, Unprecedented Uptime, and Elevated Efficiency
Significant Cost Savings
Transport4 experienced tremendous cost savings by migrating from its data center model to AWS. Hainey firmly believes that the combination of AWS and nClouds has significantly improved the company’s infrastructure. A key benefit is the ability to run production sites in two separate states: Virginia and Oregon.
Unprecedented Uptime
While Transport4 maintains the same two people monitoring its environment, the similarities with its traditional data center end there. The previous hosting provider’s patching methods caused issues with extended maintenance windows and potential outages.
Now, with a highly available AWS model, Transport4 executes seamless patch management without any downtime or impact on its customer base.
Elevated Efficiency
The flexibility and responsiveness of nClouds’ support staff are highly valued. Hainey highlighted an instance where nClouds assisted in setting up and running a CPU configuration test in AWS, a feat impossible to replicate in their previous on-premise environment due to hardware and cost constraints.
What’s Next for Transport4?
Transport4 plans to continue leveraging AWS services that align with its growing business needs. While its in-house cloud expertise is expanding, Hainey prefers to maintain the partnership with nClouds, allowing his team to remain focused on improving the quality of their pipeline managed services rather than becoming detailed AWS experts.
A Resilient Future Powered by nClouds and AWS
Transport4’s successful migration to AWS, guided by nClouds, stands as a testament to the transformative power of cloud adoption for critical business infrastructure. By transitioning from a vulnerable on-premises setup to a highly available, scalable, and cost-efficient AWS environment, Transport4 has significantly improved its operational resilience and ability to serve its customers without interruption.
This partnership with nClouds exemplifies how expert cloud migration and ongoing managed services can empower companies to overcome legacy limitations and secure a robust future in the digital landscape.
