Easy to deploy, no upfront costs and highly scalable: ReadyCloud Server is helping Hawkins Construction safely deliver training nationwide while offering them a new business opportunity into the bargain.
Easy-to-deploy infrastructure requiring no capital expenditure can pave the way to new business opportunities.
That's the experience of an early adopter of Gen-i’s ReadyCloud Services.
Hawkins Construction, the country's biggest privately owned building business, has opted for ReadyCloud Server Infrastructure-as-a-Service product as the delivery platform for a new health and safety application.
Health and safety is a key concern for the company, whose 550 staff on building sites such as the Forsyth Barr Stadium in Dunedin and Christchurch’s new airport terminal, confront multiple hazards.
Yet Andrew Confait, Hawkins’s National Health, Safety and Environmental Manager, says the company had no hesitation about entrusting the e-learning application to the Gen-i cloud.
"Absolutely — it's the future," says Confait, of the 15-month-old ReadyCloud offering. Download the full Hawkins Case Study PDF (154KB).
The service, which provides compute and backup capabilities, spares clients the cost and complexity of running their own infrastructure. For Hawkins, it has the great benefit of providing access to its web-based application from anywhere.
"As a cloud-based system it allows us to educate staff irrespective of where they are — whether in the Rimutakas, Rotokawa, Hamilton or Christchurch."
In addition, Confait says Hawkins was sold on ReadyCloud Server on the basis that it was fast, robust and scalable enough to deliver the application.
"You can have all the bells and whistles you like but if your infrastructure doesn't support what you're setting out to do, you can forget it. Gen-i and the cloud ticked all the boxes.'
Scalability is important as Hawkins considers making its application available to outside organisations with similar health and safety requirements.
As user numbers rise and fall, Gen-i can adjust the ReadyCloud Server capacity accordingly, with month-to-month rental contracts.
The service is provided from local carrier-grade data centres, and accessed via robust Gen-i WAN and Internet services.
In contrast to installing and managing its own hardware to host the application, a process Confait has had an unhappy experience of in the past, deploying it on ReadyCloud Server was effortless.
'Gen-i quickly understood what we needed and wanted and provided solutions around IT capability,' Confait says.
