Established in 1989 and headquartered in New York, Computer Perfect empowers independent and small-chain retailers to provide integrated omnichannel payment options to customers through its Lightning Retail Point of Sale (P.O.S.) Platform.
Their solutions are tailored to meet the specific requirements of retail businesses and strive to adapt quickly to the fast-evolving technological developments and competitive pressures in the retail market. The company had outgrown its existing bare metal infrastructure, holding back the growth of the business.
Computer Perfect offers an integrated Retail POS Technology Platform designed to assist businesses in managing, growing, and enhancing customer service. This comprehensive platform includes an In-Store P.O.S., an integrated E-Commerce module, and a new Digital Marketing service, fostering interactive collaboration between retailers and their customers.
The company plays a pivotal role in supporting software that is critical from both consumer and business user perspectives.
At the outset of 2023, Computer Perfect found itself grappling with a significant set of challenges. Operating on a bare metal computer system, the company encountered issues that limited its ability to reach its full potential. The existing infrastructure was not only costly to maintain but also demanded substantial manpower and ongoing maintenance. The resulting running costs became prohibitively expensive, rendering the system inefficient and lacking in value delivery.
Facing a period of rapid growth and development, including the expansion of service offerings and a growing customer base across the U.S., Computer Perfect recognized the need for a transformative solution to meet this expanding demand while continuing to provide exceptional service and support. The primary obstacle lay in their reliance on a bare metal system, prompting a search for a strategic partner capable of steering the organization toward an IT infrastructure that would seamlessly support its future growth trajectory.
Finally, a fire in the Jersey-based datacentre – whilst quickly contained with minimal customer disruption – showcased the challenges of having ‘all your data eggs in one basket’ and the need to consider wider adoption of the public and private cloud to avoid a single point of failure and mitigate against future downtime in the event of service disruption.
As a company dedicated to providing optimal uptime for its customers, especially during mission-critical periods like the holiday seasons, Computer Perfect was in search of a partner equipped with end-to-end capabilities. The chosen partner needed to field a team of experts aligned with the company's overarching goals. The core challenge revolved around finding a partner that could not only address existing issues but also lay the foundation for sustained growth and resilience.
High costs of over $500K annually for hardware, maintenance, and electricity to run bare metal servers on-premises.
The complexity of managing a siloed environment led to heavy IT workloads.
On-prem infrastructure couldn't efficiently scale to meet spikes in retail transaction volume during peak seasons.
Holiday downtime due to constrained capacity was leading to retailer dissatisfaction.
A major outage following a data center fire highlighted lack of resiliency.
Legacy systems had no redundancy resulting in over 72 hours of application downtime.
Data was at risk and retailers faced massive disruptions during outage.
90% of Computer Perfect's IT resources were tied up maintaining infrastructure.
Little bandwidth to dedicate towards enhancing capabilities and product innovation.
The mounting costs, complexity, and vulnerabilities of their aging on-prem infrastructure meant Computer Perfect needed a transformational solution to support rapid growth.
In response to the challenges faced by Computer Perfect, Aptum formulated a comprehensive solution designed to address both immediate concerns and future scalability. The decision was made to migrate Computer Perfect's solutions to the Microsoft Azure public cloud, a strategic move to counter the limitations of the existing bare metal infrastructure.
Aptum initiated the transformation with a strategic application of its Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF). This allowed for an understanding of Computer Perfect's motivations and desired outcomes for migrating to the cloud. It paved the way for a meticulously defined cloud strategy and plan that considered the readiness of people, processes, and governance for the adoption of new technical capabilities.
The execution phase involved the design and construction of a new Azure Managed Services environment (landing zone) by Aptum's professional services team. This encompassed the migration of databases from a third-party bare metal provider to Azure Managed Instances. Additionally, the migration plan included the rehosting of Windows servers and SQL on Azure.
Notably, the urgency to migrate stemmed from an unexpected fire in their Jersey data center, emphasizing the critical need for a swift and secure data migration. The longer-term vision for this migration extended beyond recovery to position Computer Perfect for new technical capabilities, minimizing disruptions, and enhancing IT stability.
In tandem with the infrastructure migration, Aptum facilitated the migration of workloads to Azure from Computer Perfect's data center. The implementation of Disaster Recovery services was a critical step, ensuring 24/7 data availability and the ability to deploy virtual machines on demand in the event of a failover. This not only eliminated potential disruptions but also upheld uptime Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
Opting for Aptum's Managed and Support Services, Computer Perfect chose to have their environment under the oversight of Aptum on an ongoing basis. This included the adoption of Managed Azure Cloud, ensuring that every aspect of their environment is optimized and supported.
The solutions provided by Aptum encompassed not just a migration to the cloud but a holistic transformation, addressing immediate concerns, ensuring resilience, and laying the groundwork for sustained growth.
The Azure cloud migration delivered significant benefits including:
The strategic partnership with Aptum resulted in a number of tangible benefits for Computer Perfect, bringing in a new era of operational efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and heightened capabilities.
The autonomy to scale independently with Microsoft Azure was pivotal. With comprehensive training and guidance, Aptum empowered Computer Perfect to make a seamless transition to a cloud-native environment.
Aptum’s flexible approach played a crucial role in facilitating a seamless transition from a legacy hosted model to the dynamic Azure environment. This flexibility allowed Computer Perfect to adapt to the evolving business landscape with agility, ensuring that technological advancements could be embraced without constraints.
Recognizing the financial constraints, Aptum actively engaged in the Microsoft Azure Migration Modernization Program (AMMP). This not only covered a substantial portion of the non-recurring charges but also demonstrated a personalized approach to financial support. The team proactively offered an amortization option, effectively breaking down the customer’s out-of-pocket expenses into manageable, equal payments.
The move to Azure significantly contributed to cost control for Computer Perfect. Hosting their platform in Azure eliminated the hardware maintenance costs and bills associated with servers. This newfound financial control allowed the company to allocate resources more efficiently and strategically.
One of the most impactful benefits was the liberation of time and resources for Computer Perfect’s team. The transition to the cloud, facilitated by Aptum, resulted in a notable increase in available time—estimated at 35%-50%. This surplus time enabled the team to redirect their efforts towards other critical projects, fostering continuous organizational growth.
The cloud environment not only addressed concerns about data protection but also ensured enhanced accessibility. With data hosted in Azure, Computer Perfect gained a secure and easily accessible repository, mitigating risks associated with data loss or unauthorized access.
Furthermore, the implementation of Disaster Recovery services and the achievement of a 100% uptime guarantee for the POS system significantly reduced costly downtime. This ensured that the POS system operated seamlessly, recapturing any downed datapoint and restoring operations immediately. This enhanced operational continuity allowed Computer Perfect to better serve its customers, particularly during peak demand periods.