With Cloud Server, a one-man shop sees big wins

Background

In July of 2011, Spencer Coplin said goodbye to his job and opened up Red Rock Service. He had plenty of know-how to get him going and plenty of coffee to sustain him. But there was one thing he didn’t have: employees.

And that’s exactly how Coplin wanted it. Today, he devotes all his resources to building hard and soft infrastructure for his clients. And he’s able to do so because the cloud enables companies of his size to compete with far bigger organizations.

With Intermedia as a partner, Coplin can back up his services with enterprise-grade reliability and support. He can compete on his own—and reap the rewards of full ownership.

Red Rock Service

Company Profile:
Red Rock Service was founded to deliver superior technology services for small businesses at affordable prices

Industry: Technology Consulting

Headquarters: Houston, TX

Intermedia’s customer since: 2012

The Challenge

Coplin’s client had three offices in three big cities. They needed a powerful application infrastructure to support SharePoint, Citrix Presentation Server, and other tools—but, most importantly, they needed their applications available 24/7 without fail.

Coplin told us that without Intermedia’s Cloud Server, he couldn’t have managed this client’s business. His other option would have been to resell a physical hosted server from a hosting company—which meant that he’d be dedicating his time and energy to upkeep and maintenance, instead of running his own business.

“Cloud Server will allow me to grow my business,” Coplin said.  “I’ll focus on adding value to my customers’ uses of technology without worrying about the back-end infrastructure, late-night maintenance windows, or any of the other burdens that typically distract a traditional IT business owner.”

  • Needed high reliability for 24/7 workforce
  • Needed reliable support
  • Wanted to court large clients as a one-man shop

The Solution

Cloud Server provided everything Coplin needed to serve this law firm while growing his business. “Without Intermedia, I wouldn’t be able to provide these services until I was at least a 20-30 person company,” Coplin said. “Cloud Server allows me to be agile enough to serve bigger clients, without any of the front-end cost of infrastructure.”

With a managed service and the agility of virtualization backing him up, Coplin assured a better level of service for his client. And he saved them money as well: by shifting his client to Cloud Server from a hosting provider, he cut their costs by 73% a month.

“In order to make this work, I needed console and admin access,” he said. “Intermedia offered that. It was a better deal without sacrificing the control I needed to do the job.”

Cloud Server allows me to be agile enough to serve bigger clients, without any of the front-end cost of infrastructure.

SPENCER COPLIN, Founder, Red Rock Service,
,

The Results

For Coplin, the benefits of Cloud Server are clear: his client saves 73% a month, and he saves time and energy. His experience extends across all aspects of his business:

  • Provisioning. Coplin started realizing benefits from Cloud Server from the first moments. “Provisioning was absolutely painless,” he told us. “The options that I had were pretty straightforward—just select the OS and SQL, wait a half hour, and the server was there. It’s even faster than trying to spin up a VM and do my own install.”
  • Support. Coplin hasn’t actually even needed Cloud Server’s 24/7 support. “I haven’t had any issues with servers going down. This speaks great about the stability of the platform. “
  • Peace of mind. “It’s just me,” Coplin says of his business. “I need to know that if my phone rings while I’m out with the family at dinner, I can get things back up and running without leaving the restaurant.” Intermedia’s Cloud Server offers Coplin 24/7 resources without adding headcount to his business.
  • Security. “Having the VM-level firewall allows me to make sure that all the servers are safe, even if I disable the Windows firewall,” Coplin said. “It was very painless to get the application servers set up. Any problems I had were with the application software, and not related to the hosting or VM level.”
  • Contract-free partnerships. The terms of Cloud Server also met Coplin’s business needs. “The fact that Intermedia doesn’t require long-term contracts is a huge boon,” he said. “Because if a client drops out on me, I’m not left holding the bag. If I had to sign a long-term contract, I wouldn’t have chosen Intermedia.”

Without Intermedia, Coplin told us, he would not have been able to land this client’s contract and grow his business. “The value I’m getting from this is certainly worth every penny.”

What’s next? Well, when Coplin’s phone rings, it’s routed over Intermedia’s Cloud PBX service. He sees the potential for adding phone services to his services bundle—which means that for a one-man shop, he’s becoming quite the one-stop solution.

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