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Q9 Managed Server Solution Keeps The Running Room and its Customers Running Smoothly
The Running Room relies heavily on its e-mail, Web site and other critical business applications to conduct business efficiently with stores, suppliers and customers. By selecting a managed solution from Q9 Networks, the Running Room benefits from greater reliability, while reducing costs and enhancing the role of its own IT professionals.
Headquartered in Edmonton, the Running Room, Canada's largest specialty running retailer, operates 62 stores across six time zones in Canada and the U.S., catering exclusively to runners. In addition to shoes, apparel and other athletic equipment, the Running Room provides in-store and on-line running clinics that encourage and enable Canadians to pursue a healthier lifestyle.
Like most successful enterprises, information technology plays a crucial enabling role for the Running Room's key business processes. With staff constantly on the road serving stores and customers and meeting with suppliers, data communications is critical. E-mail, project management and payroll-related data flowing through Microsoft Outlook keep the business running.
"We need our IT systems to support the energetic growth we are experiencing", says Kevin Higa, Running Room CFO, "and to enable us to continue providing top-notch service to our stores and customers."
Experiencing disruptions due to repeated server downtime, the Running Room grew concerned about the reliability of its systems, especially its e-mail servers and servers hosting retail applications critical to store operations.
A complete analysis of the company's computing strategy and IT environment, by a local consulting firm, TKMC of Edmonton, Alberta, identified two key areas of risk. First, servers and network infrastructure were situated in a small room in the Running Room's warehouse. Second, most of the Running Room's IT systems knowledge and experience resided in the heads of its three IT professionals. To improve reliability and security, TKMC recommended that hardware and networking systems be housed in a proper facility with adequate space, greater security and more sophisticated power and environmental systems.
"With limited financial and people resources, it was clear that building our own proper data centre facilities didn't make a lot of sense and that some form of outsourcing would be the best approach," says Higa.
After considering a number of options, the Running Room decided on a partial outsourcing solution. It would continue to handle business applications internally, while outsourcing critical server hardware, networking systems and hosting. To choose the right service provider, a number of bidders, including Q9 Networks, were screened on the basis of services offered, size, local presence, financial strength and long-term business viability.
"Q9 Networks' ability and willingness to meet the Running Room's specific business needs, rather than force fitting them into their own operational model, was a key reason they were chosen," says Eric Sherritt, P.Eng PMP, Consulting Manager, TKMC.
"Q9 addressed all our concerns and demonstrated a real understanding of what we were trying to achieve and how best to go about it in a way that was compatible with Running Room's resources and needs," adds Higa. "We were also very impressed with Q9's technical people, who were clearly competent and provided immediate answers to our questions in straightforward, layman's terms."
From Q9's state-of-the art Calgary data centre, the Q9 team proposed a comprehensive solution consisting of dedicated servers, centralized tape backup, 100% available Internet connection and a highly secure, dedicated firewall - all fully managed and monitored on a 7x24 basis.
Q9 managed hardware, such as servers and firewall devices, are spared and maintained by dedicated Q9 technical staff. Further, Q9 provides an SLA-backed guarantee for identifying and responding to hardware events. This gave the Running Room the confidence not only to outsource to Q9, but also to outsource to Q9's facility, located in a city several hundred kilometers from the Running Room's head office.
Infrastructure managed by Q9's dedicated team of specialists would also free the Running Room's internal IT staff to focus on introducing and managing applications critical to the company's growth.
To ensure complete business continuity during the cutover and to enable the Running Room to migrate critical business applications in a controlled manner, Q9 used a phased implementation approach.
Before any applications were actually migrated, the new infrastructure was turned up and fully tested, and a direct WAN connection was established between the Running Room's in-house systems and systems at Q9, enabling Internet traffic to come through Q9. This enabled the Running Room to start taking advantage of Q9's 100% uptime Internet connection, while providing the mechanism for subsequently moving its critical business applications over to the Q9 platform. Using this approach, e-mail or Internet traffic could simply be redirected to Running Room applications running on Q9 servers once they were ready; and easily switched back to the Running Room's in-house servers should any problems be encountered during the migration.
At a fraction of the price of doing it internally, the Running Room's critical applications now take advantage of world-class infrastructure that delivers powerful performance and enables the company to focus on customer service and growth. Since installation at Q9's Calgary data centre in June 2003, the Running Room has experienced no unplanned downtime.
In fact, the Running Room's new infrastructure had been successfully hosted with Q9 for a only few months, when the true value of Q9's responsive service and 100 per cent uptime guarantee came to light during the August, 2003, power failure.
The Running Room's Web site, which was not hosted at Q9 at the time, went down. Working closely with the Running Room, Q9 implemented an emergency plan to move the Web site to its own data centre where reliability and availability were assured. A critical Running Room business system was quickly restored to active status.
"Prior to Q9, we experienced hardware issues that would result in our email systems being unavailable for as long as two days," says Higa. "Now, by using Q9-managed servers, our email, Web site and other business applications are much more stable and reliable. Q9 constantly monitors the equipment and is proactive in contacting us to inform us of preventative maintenance requirements."
In addition to providing a mix of data centre space for Running Room equipment, Q9-managed servers and high-availability bandwidth, Q9 also provides an automated managed back-up service for all of the Running Room's critical data. In the remote chance of a hardware failure, the service ensures that data can quickly and easily be retrieved and restored to production.
"With Q9's managed back-up service, I don't have to worry that our back-ups are being done or done correctly," continues Higa. "I sleep better at night knowing that our critical data is backed up using a fully automated system that is being monitored around the clock."
Another benefit resulting from the Running Room's decision to outsource to Q9 has been the freeing up of internal IT staff time. By offloading infrastructure responsibility to Q9 system engineers and 7x24 Network Operations Centre staff, Running Room IT staff has focused on enhancing key business applications and processes.
"Our internal staff can contribute to the company's success in ways they couldn't before when they were preoccupied with infrastructure issues," says Higa. "In addition, The Running Room is in a much better position to handle any staff turnover because critical systems are being managed by Q9. Previously, any IT staff turnover would have been a major source of concern."
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