Contegix meets evolving customer needs with a Platform-as-a Service solution on Citrix CloudPlatform

Contegix provides thousands of customers with customized cloud computing and managed hosting solutions, from small business owners and start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. The company’s services include colocation; self-service cloud hosting; a fully managed hosting environment offering both public and private cloud technologies; and complete infrastructure hosting and application management.

The challenge: extend Infrastructure-as-a-Service into a feature-rich cloud offering

In 2009, Contegix built its initial public cloud offering on a VMware-based infrastructure. Almost immediately after launching their public cloud service, the company realized it needed a more complete foundation for its business and one that could evolve to support more robust cloud offerings. As customers grew comfortable with cloud computing, they increasingly sought more advanced services beyond colocation and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), such as public and private hosted clouds, self-service access to on-demand development environments and direct control over their hosted infrastructure. Contegix recognized the need to develop new capabilities to simplify and automate the commerce and customer service aspects of its cloud business, including on-boarding of applications, metering, billing and self-service cloud services provisioning and account management. “There were many new features we wanted to roll out, but developing them ourselves wouldn’t have been the best use of our resources,” says Contegix CEO Matthew Porter. “We knew there had to be a better solution out there.”

Solution: build a complete cloud services platform on Citrix and CumuLogic technology

Recognizing a need to build a new foundation for its MiraCloud public and private cloud service offering and the value of open-source development, Contegix explored an open-source solution. Citrix CloudPlatform, powered by Apache CloudStack, proved to be the right path forward from both a technical and business perspective. “We had very collaborative conversations with the team behind CloudPlatform, and found that they understood where our business was going and where our platform needed to go, and they were going to be there to back us up,” says Porter. “From a technology perspective, Citrix was far ahead of OpenStack, and that remains true today.” Moreover, Citrix CloudPortal manages all of the operational aspects of cloud services offerings by providing customer onboarding, provisioning, and self-service account management capabilities that seamlessly integrate with CloudPlatform.

CumuLogic helped Contegix complete their cloud services foundation. As a Citrix Ready partner focused on the service provider space, CumuLogic provides Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) software solutions that integrates with CloudPlatform and CloudPortal, as well as with the service provider’s billing system. This optimized integration enables Contegix to offer and charge for self-provisioned services that range from a complete platform stack to MySQL-based Database-as-a-Service (DaaS), load balancing, caching and a variety of other modular services.

Key benefit: provide flexible self-service public and private cloud services

The Citrix and CumuLogic solution makes it possible for Contegix customers to tailor their cloud offerings with MiraCloud. Different classes of solutions let customers choose the right mix of hypervisors, including the default option of Citrix XenServer, KVM or VMware, as well as their preferred application frameworks, infrastructure services and development tools.  In addition to Contegix public cloud solutions, customers can leverage the MiraCloud infrastructure for private cloud services. “When customers want the agility and flexibility of cloud computing, but need direct control due to corporate policies, business needs or regulatory requirements, we can use the same Citrix-powered cloud infrastructure that supports our public cloud services to provide private cloud services,” says Porter.

Key benefit: gain competitive advantage through faster time-to-market

“With CloudPlatform, we were able to provide an extremely robust infrastructure, based on time-tested, proven components, and go to market faster, with significantly more features, than if we had waited for the open source alternatives to mature,” says Porter. The market-readiness of the CumuLogic technology was also critical. “From the beginning of our conversations with Citrix and CumuLogic, it was clear that their solutions were proven, not only in technical terms, but also in their ability to address real problems in the marketplace. Because we shared a common view of the market’s direction, we can quickly move forward to solve our customers’ challenges and establish a leadership position in the fast-emerging cloud services marketplace.”

Key benefit: adapt quickly to new requirements

Citrix and CumuLogic solutions give Contegix the flexibility to respond quickly to changing customer needs. “A customer can email us at two in the morning and ask for a cluster of database servers on their infrastructure, and we can get back to them immediately with a plan and a timeframe. This helps our engineers act effectively as an extension of our customer’s IT staff, and makes MiraCloud a seamless and responsive part of their IT environment,” says Porter. “That helps our customers meet their own internal IT requirements much more quickly, and strengthens our ability to provide them with Go Beyond™ support and the best available solutions and technology.”

Looking ahead

Contegix continues to work closely with Citrix and CumuLogic to address the fast-evolving cloud services marketplace. “We’re on the verge of a massive increase in the adoption of cloud services,” says Porter. “The technical advances made possible by Citrix CloudPlatform, CloudPortal, and XenServer combined with CumuLogic Cloud Application Platform positions us well to capitalize on this growth.”