Computer Services

Business challenge To expand its data center offerings to include cloud services, Blue NAP Americas needed a more secure, scalable and flexible cloud platform.

Transformation Blue NAP Americas needed a new cloud platform that could deliver cloud services to customers from its Tier IV data center. The company turned to IBM to help design, configure and deliver a solution based on VersaStack, a converged infrastructure solution jointly developed by IBM and Cisco. As a result, cloud services have become the top seller in the company’s portfolio.

Results “Since launch, our cloud Blue NAP Americas services offering based on Reduces time from days to IBM’s solution has far minutes exceeded expectations.” to deploy a virtual machine New cloud infrastructure —Zabala, Danilo, CEO, Blue NAP Requires 0% customer becomes top revenue driver for Americas downtime during hardware upgrades to the Tier IV data center cloud platform Founded in 2016, Blue NAP Americas is a multi-tenant, carrier-neutral, Tier-IV Generates up to 40% of certified data center based in Willemstad, Curaçao. In addition to serving as a company business network access point (NAP) for the Pan-Caribbean region, it offers a portfolio of with the new cloud converged data center solutions, including colocation, private cloud, and business infrastructure continuity and managed services. The company serves both international and regional markets. Share this A move into cloud process, the company examined how platform. Because obviously there’s infrastructure but also professional its products and services could best added value in terms of the quality services. And the IBM team gave services serve local customers. “We quickly IBM provides, as well as the history our engineers an opportunity to The Dutch Caribbean island of realized that to cater to the small and the banks have with such a learn first-hand how to set up, Curaçao is known for its crystal-clear medium businesses in the regional remarkable company. So that made operate and maintain the platform.” waters, expansive beaches and market, we’d need to invest in a our decision that much easier.” IBM, colorful European architecture. It may cloud offering,” says Danilo Zabala, with its global footprint, has a The Blue NAP Americas team was seem an unlikely spot for Blue NAP CEO of Blue NAP Americas. physical office on the island, which particularly impressed with the level Americas to house a multi-tenant Tier was an additional attraction. of expertise IBM provided. Zabala IV data center. But the island’s At the time, the company’s legacy explains: “We had access to the top location—90 miles north of Venezuela cloud platform was incapable of Blue NAP Americas began working architect from IBM. He even flew and 100 miles outside of the providing the modern, robust with IBM to evaluate cloud platform down once and was available over hurricane belt—makes it ideally capabilities necessary to offer options. Ultimately, the team chose the phone for online training and situated as a network access point customers cloud services at a the IBM Network solution, further technical discussions, which (NAP) and data solutions hub for the competitive price. The company VersaStack, an integrated, converged was fantastic.” Pan-Caribbean region. sought to build a private cloud infrastructure composed of Cisco infrastructure that could safely and networking and compute combined The IBM team had the new cloud Only a handful of data centers have securely deploy the infrastructure as with IBM storage. The solution is infrastructure up and running in less been granted Tier IV certification. The a service (IaaS) offerings its designed for quick deployment and than three months. Blue NAP designation from the Uptime customers wanted and needed. time to value. Americas was able to start Institute—an organization that sets capitalizing on its investment the tier standards for data centers Leveraging IBM’s An optimized network and shortly thereafter. globally—is reserved for data centers interconnectivity across physical with the highest levels of redundancy regional infrastructures, virtual infrastructures The new offering and no single point of failure. Blue relationships and “as a service” ingestion points reaps benefits NAP Americas fully commits to the help facilitate cloud adoption After evaluating several large cloud designation, promising its data center throughout the enterprise. The Since Blue NAP Americas launched providers, Blue NAP Americas chose customers up to 100 percent uptime solution supports the development its new platform, cloud services has IBM to help select, develop and for power and cooling. and operation of the client’s new risen to the top of the company’s deliver its new cloud infrastructure. cloud environment, and serves offerings. A recent performance The three-year-old company may be IBM’s highly successful relationships both production and disaster analysis of the company’s relatively young, but since its with many of the financial recovery purposes, with no single portfolio—which also includes inception it has set big goals. In fact, organizations in the area, as well as point of failure. colocation, managed services, office it first targeted large international its reputation for delivering high- space and business services— The IBM team managed the project corporations as its primary market, quality solutions and services, made ranked cloud services highest, end-to-end, from design, sourcing with some success. it stand out from competitors. generating approximately 40 and implementation to onsite training percent of all business. However, as the advantages of its “I would say 90 percent of the banks of the Blue NAP Americas staff. “The strategic location became clear, Blue in the area are accustomed to IBM entire onboarding experience was And the platform provides other NAP Americas shifted its focus to infrastructure and have a level of very pleasant,” says Zabala. “We benefits, as well. According to businesses closer to home. In the comfort with it,” says Zabala. “That were able to acquire a turnkey Zabala, the time required to deploy was key in choosing a new cloud solution that includes not only the a virtual machine has decreased

2 from days to minutes. What’s more, illustrates. Blue NAP Americas had Take the next step performance has improved been so successful onboarding Learn how to prepare for the next significantly. Traditional networking customers onto the cloud platform wave of cloud with 5G-enabled edge approaches and the legacy platform that it was running out of memory. and software-defined networking. presented numerous ongoing During the memory upgrade, the problems, making it difficult to keep customer did not experience any pace with change and take downtime—a marked improvement advantage of new and differentiating over the downtime required technology. But with the introduction for hardware upgrades to the of the new IBM solution, the journey previous platform. has been virtually trouble-free. Blue NAP Americas plans to By developing a new network continue working with IBM on environment with the help of IBM platform adjustments in the future. Network Services, Blue NAP has “Right now, we’ve upgraded the been able to incorporate flexibility, memory capacity and it should be automation, high availability and sufficient,” says Zabala. “And we’ll call open standards into its IT landscape. on IBM again for additional expansion Working with IBM, the company of the platform.” has built a foundation for the latest technologies and future hybrid cloud adoption.

Currently, IBM provides support on an as-needed basis to accommodate the growing need for agility and scalability, as a recent incident

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