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INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND SERVICES

BENEFITS

• NDS can now offer fully

automated cloud services to

customers, differentiating

the company in a crowded

marketplace.

• Red Hat CloudForms is easy

to install — it’s deployed in

a single appliance, and all

features of the software are

included in the standard

licensing of CloudForms.

• The Red Hat subscription

model provides NDS with

24x7 support from Red Hat

by default, giving NDS and its

customers the highest level

of support.

SOFTWARE AND SERVICES

Red Hat® CloudForms

Red Hat Enterprise Linux®

HARDWARE

Juniper

Cisco

HP

Network Data Solutions (NDS) needed to differentiate its cloud services offering to stand out in

a crowded marketplace. By choosing Red Hat CloudForms to automate cloud services provision-

ing, NDS found the differentiator it needed and can now let customers use cloud services flexibly,

while avoiding complexity.

NDS is a Red Hat-certified cloud and service provider, and a Red Hat Enterprise Linux reseller.

HEADQUARTERS

“Thanks to Red Hat CloudForms, our customers can now use cloud services more flexibly. Its automation capabilities made all

the difference.”

VARUN KATYAL

CHIEF ARCHITECT, NETWORK DATA SOLUTIONS

North Sydney, Australia

CUSTOMER CASE STUDY

NETWORK DATA SOLUTIONS USES RED HAT CLOUDFORMS TO STAND OUT IN A CROWDED MARKET

2redhat.com CUSTOMER CASE STUDY Network Data Solutions uses Red Hat CloudForms to stand out in a crowded market

STANDING OUT IN THE MARKET

Network Data Solutions is an IT resource specialist based in Sydney, Australia. It helps organisations

reduce their operating costs, which, in turn, helps them to boost their bottom line. NDS sought to

compete more effectively in the crowded cloud services marketplace by differentiating its offering

from other providers through automating the provisioning of cloud services. This would enable cus-

tomers to use cloud services in a way that made the most sense for their business.

To stand out, NDS needed a solution that would let it offer flexible and affordable cloud services to

customers, with automatic provisioning, and the flexibility for customers to get the cloud services

they need, when they need them.

“The demand for cloud services is increasing and there are plenty of players in the marketplace who

can offer cloud services,” said Varun Katyal, chief architect at NDS. “What we needed to do was find

a way to stand out from that competition with a solution that customers would find genuinely com-

pelling. The answer was to deliver automation that would help reduce customers’ costs and help

simplify the complexity of choosing the right cloud infrastructure.”

IN SEARCH OF STABILITY AND RELIABILITY

NDS tested several solutions, but found that most of the solutions had key instability issues and a

lack of adequate debugging features.

But Red Hat CloudForms stood out as the best choice for its robust performance, outstanding

debugging capabilities, and overall reliability.

“Working with proprietary software can be difficult if it becomes unstable. This happened in a number

of the proofs of concept we conducted with other solutions, and debugging usually proved very dif-

ficult,” said Katyal. “In contrast, CloudForms made debugging simple because it’s open source

and structured logically. This made it easy for NDS developers to follow the code and rectify bugs.

This demonstrated that CloudForms could give NDS developers more control, making it easier to

work with.”

While many of NDS’s customers require hosting and automation services, demand for automation

services was increasing rapidly due to the smart workload placement that automation offers, letting

companies get the best value for their investment in cloud. An automated approach also reduces

the burden on NDS and the customer to manually research and determine the best infrastructure

for the workload. Most cloud services providers are locked into one vendor, making it impossible for

customers to get the level of flexibility and choice that is available to NDS customers. Being able to

provision users at the click of a button was central to NDS choosing CloudForms.

“Hosting was a service that we traditionally offered but it was not an area where we could effectively

differentiate NDS. We found that customers were increasingly looking for a solution that would auto-

mate cloud services, and it was clear that automation was where we could out-manoeuvre our com-

petitors,” said Katyal.

Red Hat CloudForms lets NDS scale its services to match customer demand, providing optimum

performance. It enables NDS to manage cloud infrastructure for customers seamlessly through

a “single pane of glass” interface, building workflows and automation for customers to consume as

services. The system automatically allocates workloads to the most cost-effective and appropriate

infrastructure, and lets users move their workloads between public, private, and hybrid cloud

environments at will. This gives customers flexibility that was not available from other cloud

services providers.

3redhat.com CUSTOMER CASE STUDY Network Data Solutions uses Red Hat CloudForms to stand out in a crowded market

CloudForms was also ideal for NDS because its data collection enabled chargeback, dashboard visu-

alisation, monitoring, and alerting. As an easy-to-install appliance with management through a web

browser, CloudForms is simple for NDS to administer.

And because CloudForms supports OpenStack, Amazon Web Services, and VMware, NDS can offer

further flexibility.

OPEN SOURCE AND BETTER SUPPORT

INCREASED FLEXIBILITY & EFFICIENCY, REDUCED COSTS

Red Hat’s open source approach and philosophy means customers are not locked into a specific

technology or contract, so they can use existing investments for maximum return on investment

(ROI). This gave NDS the technological edge it needed to stand out from the competition.

“Red Hat’s open development approach means that, by the time the solution is available for enter-

prise use, it has gone through a stringent engineering process and is stable and secure, as well as

innovative,” said Katyal.

The inherent flexibility in CloudForms also helps NDS customers reduce costs since they can use

cloud services in the way that makes the most sense for their own business — rather than being

locked into a particular vendor’s offering.

WORLD-CLASS, AVAILABLE SUPPORT

Red Hat delivers ongoing customer support that is available via telephone 24 hours a day, seven

days a week. This level of support helps NDS rest easy, with expertise and help always at the ready.

EFFECTIVE EFFICIENCY

Since implementing CloudForms, NDS has been able to give customers an automated cloud services

offering that lets them reduce costs and work more efficiently without manually adjusting workflows

as required.

“Thanks to Red Hat CloudForms, our customers can now use cloud services more flexibly. Its auto-

mation capabilities made the difference,” said Katyal. “The solution’s stability and ease of debug-

ging also contributed to its success in achieving the objectives NDS had set. As a result, NDS now

considers itself one of few providers with a viable and fully-developed automated solution in the

marketplace.”

“We have integrated CloudForms with public and private clouds, software-defined networks (SDN),

domain name system (DNS), IP address management, active directory, monitoring, Puppet and

more,” said Katyal. “While we do have to code some of these integrations, with CloudForms, it is

easy and fast. Being able to manage integration more easily saves time and lets us deliver a better

service to our customers.”

“CloudForms also makes licensing easy because of the simplified structure. As we extend the use

of CloudForms, we can do so more cost-effectively than if we were using a different product,”

said Katyal.

Red Hat CloudForms is now used in production for NDS customers and NDS plans to continue to

scale and extend the platform in the coming months.

Copyright © 2015 Red Hat, Inc. Red Hat, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the Shadowman logo, and JBoss are trademarks of Red Hat, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Linux® is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other countries.

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ABOUT NETWORK DATA SOLUTIONS

Since 1999, Network Data Solutions (NDS) has been a leading provider of information technol-

ogy and services. NDS offers an expanded range of complementary product and service offerings,

including IT procurement, software licensing, and managed cloud services. NDS has nine employees

and has customers ranging from small and medium sized businesses to large organisations, in the

government, health, and education space.

NDS is a Red Hat-certified cloud and service provider, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux reseller.

CUSTOMER CASE STUDY Network Data Solutions uses Red Hat CloudForms to stand out in a crowded market