AAA NCNU needed to cut costs, to have more room to grow, and to ensure high-availability of its customer facing applications.

Challenge
The data center is critical for AAA NCNU because of its role in the company's revenue-generating and customer service activities. AAA NCNU currently operates a number of data centers in the Western United States to house its front-end and back-end production systems - everything from the website to the insurance quotation engine.

Keeping customers happy was AAA NCNU's required service level. Kory Jensen, Director of Data Center Services for AAA NCNU puts it this way: "Leaving a member stranded on the side of the road is unacceptable, which is why it is so critical our systems hosted in our data center remain online at all times." But due to the growth of the company and the expansion of its IT operations, AAA NCNU was starting to see its costs increase. In addition, some of the data centers were running out of capacity or were located in areas that proved too risky for its mission-critical systems.

AAA NCNU needed to cut costs, to have more room to grow, and to ensure high-availability of its customer facing applications.

Why IO?
AAA NCNU went through an extensive RFP process. From defining requirements to researching providers to conducting data center tours, the team at AAA NCNU spent more than five months to find the right fit. AAA NCNU used an extensive decision matrix that included more than 100 criteria, including: location, quality of facilities, customer service, network connectivity, ability to scale, and - ultimately - cost.

"We found some data center providers that could meet some of our requirements, but not all. IO Data Centers was the only data center provider that was able to do it all," Jensen said.

Solution
AAA NCNU's goal over the next few years is to consolidate all of its data centers into two locations - one of them being IO PHOENIX. The company currently has a 4,500-square-foot, hard-walled suite and approximately 675 kW of conditioned, uninterruptible power. Many of AAA NCNU's production applications have been migrated to IO PHOENIX and more will be transitioned over the next few years as the company finalizes is consolidation efforts.

Results
Based on current projections, AAA NCNU expects to save between 50-60% of its operating costs over the next 3-5 years by working with IO Data Centers. According to Joe Fleming, IT Consultant for Data Center Operations at AAA NCNU, "If we had continued with business as usual with our other data center providers, we would see our costs skyrocket and our ability to scale and service our customers threatened."

"In working with IO Data Centers we have been able to justify our consolidation efforts and make our IT operations more cost-effective. We couldn't have asked for a better partner. The team at IO Data Centers was able to meet all of our requirements and get us up and running ahead of schedule," Jensen said.

"Everyone from the Executive-level to their day-to-day operations team was very responsive. When we needed something, all we did was call and they were there to help us. It made our jobs a lot easier," said Fleming.

About AAA NCNU
AAA Northern California, Nevada and Utah (AAA NCNU) offers a wide array of automotive, travel, insurance, DMV, financial services, and consumer discounts to more than 4 million members. AAA has been a leader and advocate for the safety and security of all travelers since it was founded more than 100 years ago.