The world is moving faster, leading companies to look for higher-performing IT services to stay competitive. ADDvision slashed response times for its clients’ business-critical applications with IBM® FlashSystem® storage. By stepping up its offering, the company is inspiring loyalty from existing customers and increasing its appeal to prospects.
ADDvision’s clients are engaging the company to run increasingly complex, data-intensive workloads. To rise to the challenge, the company decided it was time to invest in more powerful IT resources.
By deploying IBM FlashSystem technology, ADDvision gained a high-performance, future-proof storage platform that can accommodate even the most demanding applications.
It isn’t just large corporations that depend on ERP software. For many small and medium enterprises (SMEs), ERP applications are the backbone of their business. Denmark-based ADDvision specializes in hosting these critical systems on behalf of both SMEs and larger companies, enabling clients to focus on their core operations.
Per Steen Jensen, CEO of ADDvision, explains, “Companies choose us because we can offer a more personalized service than the big vendors. Our main goal is to provide our clients with more time. By taking management of business-critical systems off their hands, we give them the freedom to concentrate on serving their customers and seizing new opportunities.”
ADDvision recognized a trend: the workloads it was hosting were becoming increasingly demanding for the underlying infrastructure. To ensure it could continue to deliver a high-quality service for clients, the company began looking for more powerful technology.
Mikkel Bayer Nestved, Systems and IT Operations Consultant at ADDvision, comments, “Software is becoming more complex and resource-intensive. Our clients depend on us for 24/7 availability and short response times. We decided it was time to refresh our storage platform to ensure that we could continue to meet their expectations. With growing pressure on our profit margins, it was essential that the storage system we chose was cost-efficient and could serve us for years to come.”
As the foundation for its new storage platform, ADDvision selected an IBM FlashSystem storage array. The all-flash system provides the high performance that the company was looking for, alongside built-in data compression and IBM Storage Insights and IBM Spectrum® Virtualize management tools for efficiency. The combination enables ADDvision to enhance its service offering to clients, while protecting its margins.
Frederik Pedersen, Support Manager and Partner at ADDvision, says, “We compared storage systems from multiple vendors before identifying IBM FlashSystem as the best option for us. Performance was our priority, which made FlashSystem the clear winner. The 2:1 compression guarantee with no performance impact was another major plus. We’ve used IBM Storage in the past, so we know how easy it is to manage. All in all, a winning combination.”
By choosing FlashSystem, ADDvision was also able to eliminate an entire layer of networking infrastructure, simplifying its environment.
Mikkel Bayer Nestved adds, “Only IBM offered fibre-connected storage, which meant that we didn’t have to purchase separate switches. That’s a huge reduction in both cost and complexity.”
With help from IBM IT Infrastructure Lab Services, ADDvision deployed the new storage platform in just a few days and migrated its client environments with zero disruption. The company now benefits from automated reporting to IBM via IBM Storage Insights, helping it to resolve issues before customers notice any effect.
Frederik Pedersen explains, “Working with IBM has been an excellent experience from start to finish. Even though we are a relatively small company, IBM devoted the resources to ensure that we get the best out of their technology. It gives us great peace of mind to know that if a drive fails, IBM will be notified through Storage Insights, helping us to react fast.”
Since deploying its new storage platform, ADDvision has seen response times drop by an average of 80 percent, eliciting positive feedback from clients. For example, Coze Aarhus, a company that designs and retails women’s clothing, observed a positive impact immediately.
Jonas Bruun Nørgreen, CFO at Coze Aarhus, elaborates, “We’ve been working with ADDvision since 2009, and we trust them to host all our IT services because they’re continually innovating and improving. We noticed a big bump in performance as soon as ADDvision moved our environment to IBM FlashSystem. The shorter response times helped us cope with the sudden switch to remote working when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Our employees were able to access our ERP systems quickly from home and without disruption.”
ADDvision has enjoyed non-stop availability of its IBM FlashSystem platform since deployment, which has translated into excellent service continuity for clients. Jonas Bruun Nørgreen offers a customer perspective, “As an online retailer, any downtime is time that we cannot earn money. By choosing reliable technology from IBM, ADDvision ensures that our operations can continue uninterrupted and customers can access our services.”
Already, ADDvision’s new storage capabilities are helping the company to win new business, helping it to sustain an average growth rate of 20 percent year-on-year. ADDvision can easily scale IBM FlashSystem storage to accommodate new customer environments.
Per Steen Jensen concludes, “We recently ran a proof of concept for a prospective client using IBM FlashSystem, and we wowed them with the performance. That made for a very easy sale! We’re confident that for years to come, IBM technology will support us in being the dependable advisor we aim to be for our clients.”
Based in Denmark, ADDvision (link resides outside of ibm.com) provides ERP solutions, IT hosting, IT services, and inventory services to companies in a wide range of industries. The company aims to provide its clients with time, confidence and expertise, and combines technological innovation with timeless values.
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© Copyright IBM Corporation 2021. IBM Corporation, IBM Cloud, New Orchard Road, Armonk, NY 10504
Produced in the United States of America, June 2021.
IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, IBM FlashSystem and IBM Spectrum are trademarks of International Business Machines Corp., registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. Other product and service names might be trademarks of IBM or other companies. A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the web at “Copyright and trademark information” at ibm.com/trademark.
This document is current as of the initial date of publication and may be changed by IBM at any time. Not all offerings are available in every country in which IBM operates.
The performance data and client examples cited are presented for illustrative purposes only. Actual performance results may vary depending on specific configurations and operating conditions. THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED “AS IS” WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND ANY WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF NON-INFRINGEMENT. IBM products are warranted according to the terms and conditions of the agreements under which they are provided.
The client is responsible for ensuring compliance with laws and regulations applicable to it. IBM does not provide legal advice or represent or warrant that its services or products will ensure that the client is in compliance with any law or regulation.
Actual available storage capacity may be reported for both uncompressed and compressed data and will vary and may be less than stated.