Parallels Operations Automation selected by Business-focused ISP as the most cost effective and scalable route to bring a new Microsoft-aligned ‘software plus services’ proposition to market with speed.

Star is the largest independent business-to-business Internet services provider in the UK, providing practical Internet-driven services for over 500,000 small to medium sized businesses (SMBs).

The company has achieved rapid growth and success since it was formed back in 1995. Initial wins included a ‘Network Product of the Year’ award for its NetStar voice, data and applications convergence product at the Networking Industry Awards. In 2000, with industry momentum growing, Star formed its MessageLabs group whose technical mission was to find a better way to detect the new breed of viruses that were rapidly spreading throughout the business world.

After gaining independence from the MessageLabs group in 2007, Star is now focused on MPLS technology and supporting the growth of its customers’ networks by delivering a secure managed solution through Microsoft Exchange that provides resilient networking across multiple offices to a secure, managed hosted data center.

Star now has six core business functions: Internet Connectivity, Resilient Networking, Managed Hosting, Mobile Solutions, Robust Security and Voice.

The Business Challenge
Star had a very proactive expansion plan centered on strategically following the Microsoft roadmap, but was growing faster than they could profitably support. The company wanted to make a transition from being a pure play hoster and provider of mass email, to being a ‘software plus services’ provider based on Microsoft’s vision for Hosted Messaging and Collaboration (HMC) 4.5 technologies. This meant that Star was faced with the challenge of finding a system that could support that growth, while also embracing the Microsoft platform to allow the company to focus their business on a software plus services proposition.

Star had an existing Exchange 2003 solution using Ensim; but being extremely ‘market-aware’, the company was not comfortable with the prospect of delivering high volumes of data on it. Feedback from customers was consistent with this worry, as concerns were raised over what was described as a ‘clunky’ user interface. Put simply, customers said that it was difficult to work with and requested a slicker user experience overall. Internally, Star required a system that transformed provisioning to an on demand format on a platform where additional applications could be added over time, while maintaining a consistent user experience throughout.

The Evaluation: Build vs. Buy?
After only a brief ‘build vs. buy’ analysis, Star was able to determine that Parallels Operations Automation offered them the solution it had been looking for. The company made its choice based upon the product’s scalability, performance and its ability to run millions of accounts with complex services. Parallels boasts a team of over 150 software developers with nearly a decade of expertise in producing applications to support optimized hosting computing solutions, something that Star wisely decided to buy-in rather than attempt to build from scratch.

Especially compelling to Star during its decision making process was a guaranteed delivery date and the promise of an alignment to the Parallels roadmap for upgrading. In addition, Star found Parallels Operations Automation to be the most cost effective solution available to allow its business model to get to market quicker than via any other route, especially if they had have built their own platform. With lower overall costs in terms of initial outlay - and ongoing management options that would afford Star far greater agility, it was easy to settle on buying into a Parallels off-the-shelf solution.

Increasing Revenue per Customer
Launching Star’s Exchange-based Email has significantly helped to increase the revenue per customer from legacy clients. “For our business model to work, we knew that we needed a wider increase in customer adoption across our four product lines. Some customers come to us initially looking for a dedicated Internet access circuit, but when they realize how easy it is to purchase other services quickly, they also purchase security, hosting and Email services. Parallels has underpinned our portfolio offering with more intelligently structured servicing and billing application automation so that our stake in this market stands to increase,” said James Griffin, Head of Hosting Strategy, Star.

With Parallels Operations Automation in place, Star can now offer integrated Hosted Sharepoint services, giving their customers higher individual value and giving the company more revenue per seat then ever before.

“This is a pure seat-play with our new broadened service set. Our strategy is to go into the market very aggressively with the best price available and the best possible product. We will cut our margins and use Exchange as the gateway to our other services. We will then use Parallels to bolt in Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Office Communication Server in the future. This will be integrated and automated using Parallels Operations Automation to increase our revenue per user by offering additional services. We anticipate projected revenues of US$3 million per year if we are successful as we think we can be,” added Griffin.

Parallels Operations Automation also provides gateways and plug-ins for other popular hosting services such as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Virtual Private Servers, Shared Web Hosting, Dedicated Server Hosting and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Decreasing Costs
Star is currently using the Parallels Plesk Panel in combination with its hosting services to provide a built-in Online Control Panel. Star leverages the end user control panel of Parallels Operations Automation to empower customers to manage the service directly – a faster and more intuitive route than the users placing phone calls or sending support request Emails to Star. The Parallels Operations Automation control panel for Microsoft Exchange allows end users to manage mailboxes, distribution lists, public folders, storage usage and allocation while also controlling wireless access for devices like Smartphones. This allows customers to control their services in real time in an automated fashion, which saves Star money in terms of help desk support calls to Parallels.

Shortening Time to Market
Once Star made the decision to proceed with Parallels based upon a guaranteed delivery date, it took two months from the initial consultations and meetings until the completion of the migration. Parallels installs the Microsoft Hosted Messaging and Collaboration (HMC) solution as part of the standard Parallels Operations Automation deployment. This platform has nearly a hundred configuration steps and so is typically very complex. Allowing Parallels knowledgeable staff to quickly handle this task saves clients like Star huge amounts of valuable time that can be better directed towards their core business functions.

Solution Design and System Integration
The company has publicly stated that the engagement process with Parallels as an organization was fundamentally different to that which they experienced with their previous incumbent technology partner. Star’s existing Exchange 2003 solution using Ensim had been in use for three years, during which time the company grew to accommodate some 7000 seats. Migrating these users over from the Ensim software to the Parallels Automation solution was planned to be a gradual process to start with, but Star is convinced that savings will be made in terms of customer support calls once that process is complete. Since deployment, the company has stepped up its migration timeframe to within one year for all seats; such has been the customer demand for new, additional services offered via the Parallels Automation platform.

Conclusion
The decision to use Parallels was an easy one for Star to make and it has been an unrivalled success on both a technical and a commercial level. Star’s existing Exchange 2003 solution using Ensim had been in use for three years, during which time the company grew to accommodate some 7000 seats. In its first quarter after moving to the Parallels platform, Star’s run rate tripled as new revenue streams immediately opened up. Star attributes the success seen thusfar to having a refreshed product with the ability offer integrated SharePoint with an archiving service as part of a service bundle, something that has only been possible since moving to Parallels. From this point onward the company is now targeting an eightfold increase in run rate with 900 new seats per month.

The transition process to migrate from Ensim to Parallels was painless and seamlessly managed. Star was attracted by the ability to negotiate its exact contract and then deploy to go-live within a four to six week timeframe. Future plans will continue the momentum already gained, as further progress is made towards Star’s goal of doubling the size of the platform within the first year.

Star expects to leverage the capabilities of the Parallels platform to offer additional services and further increase average revenue per customer in the future. The company is reviewing the possibility of launching Microsoft Dynamics CRM and adding Parallels Plesk Panel to its hosting services; both being strategic moves to further increase revenue per user and reduce costs. Star also hopes to eventually take advantage of Parallels’ separate branding capabilities for ‘white label’ channel and partner sales. This will allow partners to resell Star services using independent branding so that end users do not have visibility that Star is the underlying services provider.

Both Parallels and Star are Microsoft Gold Certified Partners.