Customer Stories

posted on 29 May 2008 11:37

[Customer story provided by Morse in the UK. Reproduced here as an example of IBM storage and storage software use.]

As a young, fast-growing company based in Marlow and with more than 300 employees across the globe, SpinVox offers its customers a unique solution.

Initially aimed at mobile phone users, SpinVox offers services which convert voice messages to text which the customer can now receive in various forms; SMS on their mobile phones, emails in their inbox or posts directly to their blogs or social networking sites such as Facebook. It is not only proving to be a personal productivity and business efficiency tool, but also a way of keeping connected to the Internet, whilst on the move. Receiving voicemail messages as text allows people to see all their messages at a glance and helps them prioritise and respond to messages quickly and easily.

Less than five years old, the company has grown rapidly. It is expanding its customer subscriber base from hundreds of thousands to millions as its deals with large telecommunications companies go live on four continents: Europe, North America, Africa and Australia; and in four languages: English, French, Spanish and German. SpinVox early infrastructure used technology that was suitable for a start-up company. It was small and based on as much open source technology as possible to keep costs down. In order to successfully engage with telecommunications operators, SpinVox needed a carrier-grade infrastructure to ensure that the service would be scaleable and robust enough to cope with a sudden increase in users.

The challenge – buying the right technology for the right price
As SpinVox developed, matured its offering and built a steady retail client base, the company decided that it wanted to offer its services on a much larger scale – through telecoms carriers. This meant that more and more infrastructure needed to be purchased. SpinVox decided that it should work with a partner to ensure that it was buying the right hardware and software to help it achieve its goals and ensure the best possible price for the equipment being purchased.

Philip Marnick, CTO SpinVox, explained that the decision to choose the right partner was not an easy task: “We looked carefully to see who was working with other, larger players in comparable markets who also had the scale and ability to deliver the level of service we were after. We chose Morse because it has a great reputation in the telecommunications market and we were confident that it would be able to help us build the technology infrastructure we needed to take SpinVox forward.”

The solution - a flexible, scalable environment

To determine the mix of technology needed, Morse first had to understand SpinVox business goals and the range of technology required. Morse then had to evaluate the technology available on the market to ensure it would meet SpinVox unique needs.

The solution was to create new carrier-grade data centres to provide a more robust platform which would allow SpinVox to continue to develop its technology and services. The new data centres are based on IBM X Series servers, including blade servers; IBM DS4700 storage; Tivoli back-up and storage management software; and Informix database software running on Linux. One of the main criteria for the new solution was that it needed to be highly flexible and scalable to enable it to grow alongside the business.

“Morse’s strong vendor relationships meant they could help us buy the best equipment and could work with the main suppliers to make sure we got the right price for what we needed,” said Marnick. “It was also essential that we were being sold the right technology for the job. We didn’t want to pay a lot of money for equipment to then find out that there was a smaller device that would have been more effective, with better functionality or flexibility.”

The outcome - new data centres

As well as helping SpinVox choose and purchase the new equipment, Morse also provided engineers to actually build the data centres and implement the technology. In addition, Morse assessed what equipment was needed, evaluated the latest technology on the market to determine what would be the most efficient and cost effective, and implemented the new infrastructure.

“We are very pleased with the new environment. Everything is up and running – we have successfully migrated our applications over and the data centres are working well,” added Marnick. “The new data centres are already proving a success and we are launching our services with major telecoms, Internet and service brands. The new solution has proved to be reliable and stable and provides the flexibility that we need our underlying infrastructure to have.”

Moving forward, the experience of working so closely with Morse will help SpinVox further develop its service as it builds other application layers, and Morse will continue to provide advice on what technology the company needs.

“Telecommunications is a very competitive and aggressive market so it is really important to us that we work with a partner that can advise us and help create the best possible solution using the most innovative technology available. Morse particularly impressed us because it understood and respected our need to keep quality high and costs under control. We are very pleased with what Morse has delivered so far and the advice they have given along the way has been invaluable,” emphasised Marnick.

Summary:

- Rapidly-growing telecommunications services company SpinVox needed to create new data centres to provide a carrier-grade infrastructure to support its business,
- Cost, flexibility and scalability were key concerns,
- Morse’s expertise in the telecommunications market and strong vendor relationships meant it was able to design, advise on the best equipment and build the new data centres quickly and efficiently,
- The new infrastructure has provided a robust platform on which to enhance SpinVox services as well as meet the requirements of carriers interested in offering SpinVox to their customers.

^{[Formatted by B&F staff.]}