Cisco Cisco Nexus 2224TP GE Fabric Extender Leaflet
Challenge
Founded in 1994, EarthLink is an IT services, network, and communications provider
with an extensive network spanning 29,421 fiber route miles. The company began
as a residential ISP (Internet service provider) and continues to deliver a broad range
of online services to approximately 1 million homes throughout the United States.
with an extensive network spanning 29,421 fiber route miles. The company began
as a residential ISP (Internet service provider) and continues to deliver a broad range
of online services to approximately 1 million homes throughout the United States.
In recent years, EarthLink expanded its operational model to include IT services for
small and medium-size businesses, forming a division called EarthLink Business.
Company management realized that a viable cloud offering was necessary to remain
competitive with other providers in their space. “Our first foray into the cloud was
not ideal,” says Joe Reazor, director of product engineering at EarthLink Business.
“We had acquired a small cloud provider and we were using their infrastructure to
deliver cloud services. The infrastructure wasn’t robust or agile enough to easily
scale, and the hardware was all housed in a single region, so our failover capabilities
were very limited. We knew that we needed a much more dependable, scalable
solution to keep pace with the rest of the industry.”
small and medium-size businesses, forming a division called EarthLink Business.
Company management realized that a viable cloud offering was necessary to remain
competitive with other providers in their space. “Our first foray into the cloud was
not ideal,” says Joe Reazor, director of product engineering at EarthLink Business.
“We had acquired a small cloud provider and we were using their infrastructure to
deliver cloud services. The infrastructure wasn’t robust or agile enough to easily
scale, and the hardware was all housed in a single region, so our failover capabilities
were very limited. We knew that we needed a much more dependable, scalable
solution to keep pace with the rest of the industry.”
Solution
EarthLink Business looked at a number of different vendors that could provide a
cloud offering, but Cisco quickly emerged as the one to beat. “Cisco had the next-
generation approach, with the Unified Computing System (Cisco
cloud offering, but Cisco quickly emerged as the one to beat. “Cisco had the next-
generation approach, with the Unified Computing System (Cisco
®
UCS
®
) blending
network and compute in a single environment,” says Stephen Currie, director of
product management at EarthLink Business. “We also liked the FlexPod offering,
which is Cisco UCS coupled with NetApp for storage and VMware for virtualization.
The whole package was more intelligently designed and more mature than anything
else we considered.”
product management at EarthLink Business. “We also liked the FlexPod offering,
which is Cisco UCS coupled with NetApp for storage and VMware for virtualization.
The whole package was more intelligently designed and more mature than anything
else we considered.”
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
Page 1 of 3
Customer Case Study
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Customer name:
EarthLink Business
Industry:
IT services
Location:
Atlanta, Georgia
Number of employees:
3000
Challenge
• Expand service set to include cloud
offering for small to medium-size
businesses
• Achieve greater scalability than
possible with legacy cloud
infrastructure
• Help ensure better redundancy
by building infrastructure across
multiple regions
Solution
• Cisco UCS combines network
and compute in easy-to-manage
environment
• Cisco Cloud Enablement Services
determines infrastructure necessary to
support cloud-ready environment
• Cisco Data Center Optimization
Services facilitates transition to
infrastructure as a service
Results
• Reduced time to deploy, replace, and
upgrade hardware by 25 percent
• Cut firmware upgrade time from days
to hours
• Delivered more reliable uptime and
significantly improved customer
experience