ROEL Construction Transitions to Zumasys' Cloud Computing Platform

IRVINE, Calif., Sept. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Zumasys, a leading provider of Cloud Computing solutions, announced today that it has successfully migrated ROEL Construction to its fast-growing application hosting platform. Under the terms of their agreement, Zumasys will host all of ROEL's 350 users, its core applications and more than 5TB of storage. Based in San Diego, ROEL Construction is a family-owned company renowned for delivering large scale construction projects throughout the western United States for over 90 years.

While ROEL has always had a full-service, in-house IT department, as the economy changed in 2009, the company was looking for ways to reduce costs but was facing the need to upgrade its infrastructure. ROEL first started working with Zumasys in early 2009 to optimize its Citrix environment. By December of that year, ROEL decided to transition to cloud computing instead of investing in new equipment and once again turned to Zumasys for assistance. Kevin Fitzpatrick, IT Director at ROEL, determined that outsourcing his server infrastructure offered an important opportunity for cost savings and would enable him to better use his resources.

"Zumasys gave us the flexibility to make our hosted solution whatever we needed it to be, unlike the large cloud computing providers we considered," remarks Fitzpatrick. He also cites the cost-effectiveness and personalized service of Zumasys as key drivers for his selection.

One of the added benefits of transitioning to the hosted environment was that it enabled ROEL to instantly put a disaster recovery system in place. Rather than having to invest in a separate disaster recovery strategy, it came as an inherent part of the company's partnership with Zumasys — with all of ROEL's servers and data automatically replicated to Zumasys' Las Vegas co-location facility.

"As our cloud computing platform continues to evolve, we are excited to welcome larger companies like ROEL Construction to our growing family of hosted customers," says Paul Giobbi, President of Zumasys. "We have focused the last five years refining our virtual architecture and developing a scalable hosted solution. We are thrilled to see clients of all sizes benefit from the cost savings and operational efficiencies that this platform offers."

With this transition, ROEL has also enabled web-based anytime, anywhere access to company systems for all of its employees. This was a critical advantage given the large proportion of the company's workforce located at remote offices and job sites.  

"Now if we have problems at the corporate office, we aren't taking down the whole company," states Fitzpatrick. The company also saw an improvement in speed with the move. "We had overburdened our previous system and were seeing a lot of slowness.  When we went live the only calls we got were from people telling us that things were running a lot faster. For me, that meant we had achieved one of our biggest goals — our end users were seeing an improvement," Fitzpatrick adds.

By transitioning to cloud computing, ROEL has been able to save $70,000 a year based on reduced equipment, maintenance and operational costs. This savings is on top of ROEL's already reduced annual energy costs, lowered by 80%, from their prior VMware implementation a few years ago. As a result of these savings, Fitzpatrick was able to avoid having to downsize one of the jobs in his department despite the slow-down in the building industry. With cloud computing, ROEL also has now established a more predictable monthly IT cost that improves budgeting and financial planning.

"One of the greatest things about this transition to the hosted environment is that we've been able to get out of the infrastructure business and stay focused on managing IT, says Fitzpatrick. "Instead of running storage and other equipment, the IT team can now focus its time on managing projects and new implementations."

About ROEL Construction:

ROEL Construction is a family-owned company that has delivered excellence in construction since 1917.  Headquartered in San Diego, ROEL has earned a solid reputation for delivering large scale construction projects throughout the western United States. ROEL provides a wide-range of services and project delivery expertise including new construction, construction management, design-build, tenant improvement, LEED certified, structural concrete and surety and consulting services. Currently, more than 55 percent of the company's 350+ person staff works remotely out of four regional offices and various active job sites. For more information, visit www.roel.com.

About Zumasys:

Zumasys helps companies of every size transition their infrastructure and applications to the cloud. Customers access the latest software and hardware technologies over the web for a simple, predictable monthly fee, which empowers them to focus on their core business instead of running IT. Having led the way in cloud computing for five years, Zumasys delivers personalized service, integrated disaster recovery, and the confidence companies need to successfully outsource their systems and applications. The company is a Microsoft Gold Partner and also works with Citrix Systems, VMware, NetApp, HP, Cisco, ShoreTel and SonicWALL to deliver leading edge technology solutions to businesses across North America. Zumasys was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Irvine, CA. For more information, visit www.zumasys.com  

SOURCE Zumasys