“At the Microsoft Technology Centers (MTCs), we help customers envision, architect, test and fine-tune their software applications and provide customized secure solutions in an engaging atmosphere.  Our customers are typically enterprise organizations, Independent Software Vendors (ISV) or partners who are evaluating a Microsoft solution.

“The MTC offers Strategy Briefings, Architecture Design Sessions and Proof-of-Concept Workshops.  Strategy Briefings are one-day and demonstrate how Microsoft software and technologies can solve customers’ business problems.  Architecture Design Sessions are two-day engagements that define the architectural vision for a Microsoft-based solution.  The most comprehensive level is a Proof-of-Concept Workshop, which is a flexible, customized, hands-on engagement intended to assist customers through the development and validation of the specific, high-risk aspects of their Microsoft-based solution.

“With new customers coming into the MTC nearly every week, we’re essentially building a new production system every week.  This requires that we rebuild our servers - often combining them in new and different ways - for each customer session.

Frequent Hardware Swaps Dictate a Flexible Solution
“The frequent changes in hardware configurations, coupled with the need to combine servers and storage in unique ways to meet customer needs, presented our data center with some unique challenges.  We needed a rock-solid network critical physical infrastructure (NCPI) so that we could focus on preparing the servers for customers.  We have no time set aside in our schedules to dedicate to troubleshooting infrastructure issues.

“To incur downtime means our customers’ proof-of-concept demonstrations would be interrupted.  This would delay our customers’ time-to-benefit, and lengthen our sales cycle.

“As a result of this continually evolving hardware environment, our data center was facing equipment density issues as well as power and cooling requirement changes.  We needed scalability, manageability and reliability for the powering and cooling for our migration to a new 55 server and 23 Terabyte data center.

InfraStruXure® Software a Boon to Microsoft
“APC’s InfraStruXure® solution was unique in its comprehensive approach – rack, power and cooling were all managed and all modular.  APC’s proven reliability and long-standing partnership with the MTC were the deciding factors.  We change configurations in our data center on a weekly basis.  The InfraStruXure® system with its ability to balance loads as we swap servers, battery modules and power modules, helps to make these changes worry-free.

“Our new data center now has the power capacity to enable us to accept new hardware.  The NetShelter® racking systems give us the ability to maintain an orderly environment for our customers, and the cooling solution maintains the data center at an appropriate temperature.  We expect InfraStruXure to enable us to serve our evolving customer demand, as well as accommodate new customer growth.  Over time, our data center will require more hardware and increased agility.  APC will continue to be a vital partner by helping us respond.

“APC’s products and solutions have turned our data center into an environment where we manage everything through software.  This gains tremendous credibility for Microsoft and our partners, contributing to our ongoing success with enterprise customers.”