To Support Your Company’s Growth, Buy for the Long Term

My career in IT has spanned many companies and opportunities. But my journey started right after university, where I studied Information Technology. My first job out was part time on an internet helpdesk. My experience there—helping people solve their technical issues—confirmed my belief that IT was the right place for me. If I was faced with a problem, I could find a unique and creative solution. With my vision in hand, I then worked for a lot of big companies—like Compaq, HP, and KPMG—which allowed me to travel all across the globe.

But after my time with these big companies, I started to look for a new challenge. I met the founders of Missing Piece—a new company that had just launched—while I was contracting, and on the hunt for a new opportunity. They outlined their vision of desktop as a service—where Missing Piece hosts all the customer’s applications and gives them a single login system. They needed someone with my experience to look after the data center side. The role seemed like exactly what I needed at that point in my life, so I joined as Network Administrator in 2008. 

When I first started at Missing Piece, we supported only about 100 end users, but we used equipment from a ton of different brands that weren’t the best fit for our goals. We knew we wanted to grow—this wasn’t a company that wanted to flatline. To keep up with the growth we expected, we needed to have the IT systems in place now, not later. 

The Right Base to Grow

In search of the equipment to help us grow, my experience told me we needed to go with Cisco. In my past jobs, I had tremendous success with implementation and use of Cisco. When I first suggested to make the move, I received the expected question from my management: How much will this cost? But once I was able to show them how easily we’d be able to scale, there was no issue. The investment now meant we could grow to our wildest dreams. With everyone on board, we could now head in the right direction. 

When we first rolled out Cisco, we went with switches and firewalls to build a proper network. This was imperative because of our growth aspirations. To grow like we envisioned, we needed a solid foundation. Our plans required a modular solution that would allow us to add computing and networking capacity as the company expanded.

We found that modular solution in Cisco’s Unified Computing System (UCS), which allows us to make our configurations, and then as we want to grow, we pre-provision the slots so all we have to do is just slide in the new servers as needed. This allows us to focus on growth, and not slow down to worry about hardware. 

Jumping forward to where we are today—nine years later—we’re at 3,500 users, nearly 800 servers in our data centers. That growth in such a short time is staggering, but the process was smooth because right from the start we thought about how we wanted to grow. Instead of only focusing on our immediate needs, we built a scalable framework. 

Actionable Insights

For those looking to invest in a data center, it’s important to not just evaluate the device. I always say, “You only buy equipment once, but you're going to run it for years.” Since you’ll have these products for a long time, it’s essential to consider two additional important aspects in IT procurement:

1. Documentation


With any equipment I need, I already know how it should function. But before I buy, I have to read the documentation to grasp if our particular use case can be met. There’s no point in buying a product that can’t handle our environment. With a Cisco device, the documentation is always a giant PDF that contains hundred of pages. But I know if I start at page one and read through, I’ll understand precisely if the device can meet our needs.

If I don’t have good documentation, then I’ll have to look elsewhere. The common saying in my field is that Google is your friend, but if your equipment is on fire, then Google can’t be your friend quickly enough. Online search also provides results that may not be exactly relevant or trustworthy. With good documentation, I know I will get reliable information, every time. 

2. Support

We have 3,500 users relying on our infrastructure, which is a tremendous amount of trust they’ve placed in us. We host our client’s livelihoods, and they want their system to just work. If our customers can’t access their applications, then they can’t do their job. Many of our customers are insurance agents who receive calls at all hours of the day. If they get a call from a customer, they need to be able to respond right away. Service is their entire business. 

We take this level of trust very seriously, which is why it’s crucial we have only one place to call when there’s a crisis. I’m not on the phone with different vendors to get to the bottom of the issue. I pick up the phone, call Cisco, and they can solve any issue. When it comes to support, Cisco is one of the best organizations I’ve ever worked with. With this quick assistance, we can pass on an exceptional level of service to our clients. 

Looking After Ourselves

The high level of trust our customers have in us is the reason we do all data storage in-house instead of in the cloud. This way, our clients know the people who have access to their data. If they want, our customers can even come visit and physically touch the servers storing their information. 

Nine years ago, cloud storage wasn’t very big, so it wasn’t a viable option. But even today, with all its popularity, the value our customers place on storage shows that we need to maintain a high level of control. For many of our customers, local storage is the main reason they outsource to us. 

Another primary reason for outsourcing to Missing Piece is because of our focus on security. In a world where ransomware and other technological evil lurks, we need to be prepared. There’s a great deal of financial information in our user’s systems—perhaps millions of customer records—and it’s imperative we take this responsibility seriously. The world of security is complex. We can’t simply put up a firewall and tell the threats to stay on one side, because the threats also come from the inside. By relying on Cisco for our firewall and email security, we know data security is handled for us, because I can harness the knowledge of Cisco’s experts.

Cisco has enabled us to become a reliable service provider, keep pace with our growth, and remain secure. Because of the breadth of product offerings Cisco has, I can get basically anything I need from them. If I want email security or firewall security, I can get a Cisco device. I know any product will work correctly and play well with all other systems we have. 

Now that I’ve been here for nine years, I look back on what’s kept me around. I think it’s the love of problem solving that I first found in that part-time job. The scale and problems are a lot bigger these days, but so is my satisfaction.