In a world where agility is paramount, businesses often find themselves at a crossroads, forced to choose between traditional practices and innovative solutions. Alexander Bingham, the IT Director of the Cloud Services team at ADT, offers us a compelling insight into the journey of a 150-year-old company that has transformed its multi-cloud operations with the VMware Avi Load Balancer (Avi).
A Legacy of Trust and Transformation
ADT, known for its home security and automation services, has been a trusted name for over a century. However, the evolving technology landscape demanded a transformation in how ADT operates. Alexander Bingham highlights that ADT needed to pivot swiftly, enabling rapid development of new applications and services while maintaining operational reliability.
The key challenge ADT faced was delivering new capabilities at a pace that their legacy processes couldn’t match. Traditional infrastructure often required 30 to 90 days to deploy, leaving the company unable to meet the demands of a dynamic market.
Embracing Multi-Cloud with VMware
VMware entered the scene as a game-changer. By virtualizing their servers, ADT reduced deployment times from months to minutes. This shift allowed them to focus on delivering services faster, driving efficiency, and improving customer satisfaction.
As ADT transitioned to the cloud, they encountered the complexity of transforming applications for cloud-native environments. Enter VMware’s solutions, which provided a bridge between on-premises and cloud environments. Leveraging VMware, ADT could seamlessly move workloads and maintain interoperability.
ADT’s journey extended beyond a single cloud provider. They expanded into Google, Oracle, and Azure, necessitating a multi-cloud strategy. To achieve this, they adopted VMware technologies across clouds, standardizing their operations for improved redundancy and business continuity.
The Power of VMware’s Avi Load Balancer
One of the pivotal moments for ADT was adopting Avi. Here’s what they had to say:
“Being able to stick it in two clouds and then have the load balancer exist in both clouds simultaneously to balance that out, that access to that application was probably the significant benefit that we gained from using it.”
Avi enabled ADT to standardize and provide consistent load balancing across multiple clouds, simplifying operations and improving redundancy. It provided ADT with networking and security capabilities, ensuring East-West traffic protection. By centralizing their load balancing with Avi, ADT simplified management and enabled scripted code deployment.
The Business Impact
The benefits of adopting VMware, including Avi and NSX, were profound:
- Reduced Delivery Time: ADT reduced delivery times by up to 99%, significantly improving their business operations.
- Cost Efficiency: By shifting operational costs to cloud vendors, ADT allocated resources more effectively.
- Agility and Geographic Reach: VMware’s solutions allowed ADT to deploy workloads rapidly, anywhere they could access VMware capacity, enhancing their ability to serve customers effectively.
Enabling Business Continuity
ADT’s mission is to be there for customers during their most vulnerable moments. Maintaining some on-premises capacity ensures they can deliver on this commitment, while leveraging the cloud provides agility and scalability to meet customer demand.
Reducing Carbon Footprint
ADT’s cloud transformation allowed them to reduce their carbon footprint by migrating from on-premises data centers. They expect to reach 80% of their IT assets in the cloud by the end of the year, closing several data centers.
Embracing Innovation
ADT’s multi-cloud approach empowers different business units to drive IT capacity consumption and develop applications independently. This innovation-friendly environment enables ADT to stay ahead of customer demands.
Conclusion
ADT’s journey with Avi and VMware is a testament to the transformative power of technology. Their story showcases how legacy businesses can evolve, reduce costs, increase agility, and provide superior services by embracing modern solutions.
If you’re looking to supercharge your business operations, consider following ADT’s footsteps and explore the possibilities offered by Avi and VMware. In today’s fast-paced world, it’s not just about survival; it’s about thriving and being there for your customers when they need you the most. To get more details on ADT’s overall VMware deployment, read this case study.
