Private Cloud Service Provider Deploying Brocade Routing and Switching Solutions to Stay on Extreme Growth Path
After four consecutive years of strong growth Cloud Plus, a wholesale provider of private cloud solutions in Australia and New Zealand, is turning to Brocade for its next-generation data center and MPLS network infrastructure. The Brisbane-based company is applying its own on-demand playbook to the network upgrade by leveraging the pay-as-you-go flexibility of the Brocade® Network Subscription acquisition model.
Thanks to a business model focused on providing infrastructure and other cloud-based services through more than 50 solution partners, Cloud Plus saw its revenues grow by 191 percent in the financial year ending in June 2013. It achieved 147 percent growth levels in fiscal year 2014, and is on schedule to exceed that growth in 2015. The data traffic running over its network has actually been growing at an even faster pace, as a result of the telecommunication industry’s falling costs for network bandwidth and the ability of Cloud Plus partners to execute larger deals that deliver data transfer at a lower price.
In the new Cloud Plus data center in Sydney Brocade VDX® 6740 switches have been matched with the latest Supermicro multinode integrated compute devices and high density storage devices from EMC and Supermicro to create a highly efficient cloud computing infrastructure. Because the data center has only recently been bought into operation, infrastructure utilization levels are still relatively low but Cloud Plus is only paying Brocade for the Ethernet fabric ports connected to active nodes. And, as demand for capacity at the Sydney data center grows, Cloud Plus can add more Brocade VDX switches to increase the size of the fabric network, enabling it to align costs with revenue on a dynamic basis.
“Network traffic continues to grow exponentially while the cost of storing and switching data falls. As a service provider, we need highly scalable infrastructure to support this trend. We also have to ensure that we have sufficient capacity to cater for significant bursts of growth without compromising performance. The infrastructure investment required to achieve that can tie up a lot of capital,” said Jules Rumsey, chief executive of Cloud Plus Pty Ltd.
“Brocade Network Subscription enables us to make maximum productive use of out limited financial resources rather than having capital locked in currently unproductive assets. Likewise, Brocade’s highly scalable, open, and manageable network platforms enable us stave off short-term upgrade cycles and allow our senior engineers to be client-focused.”
Brocade partner ASI Solutions has been training the Cloud Plus engineering team and assisting with network planning to ensure smooth deployment of the new Brocade switching and routing platforms within the company’s existing network infrastructure. Brocade Network Subscription meanwhile, gives Cloud Plus the flexibility of introducing new Brocade equipment into the network whenever it is needed, while only paying for the capacity that is actually being utilized.
For example, Cloud Plus is planning to introduce Brocade MLXe Series routers at each of its Point-of-Presence (PoP) sites to enhance the scalability of its MPLS backbone and provide high-capacity Ethernet switching to connect partners and their clients to its cloud data centers. Traffic currently running through the PoPs is in the 10 Gigabits per second range, while the Brocade MLXe router supports 4 to 8 Terabits per second of switching capacity. Further, Cloud Plus only pays for the capacity being used, which takes the guesswork out of network capacity planning.
“Network capacity planning is a notoriously difficult discipline. Get it wrong and you could end up ripping out equipment long before its end of life or, alternatively, never utilizing the capacity you installed several years ago,” said Gary Denman, Senior Director, Australia and New Zealand for Brocade. “Cloud Plus partners and clients look to the flexibility of on-demand cloud services to mitigate the financial risk of their IT operations and Cloud Plus is, in turn, mitigating its network risk with Brocade.”
Brocade Network Subscription is an open-ended acquisition model that allows IT managers to identify network solutions that can quickly accommodate ever-changing needs, without the restrictions of traditional purchase or lease models. It eliminates the impact of capital expenditure on balance sheets and enables organizations to refresh their network infrastructure. They are able to upgrade at any time and adjust network capacity on-demand without penalty, allowing them to focus on scaling their business instead of worrying about capacity planning and evolving network infrastructure requirements.
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