|
prepared by Apropos – A marketing services firm
As sales shifted increasingly to the Internet, Container and Packaging Supply decided to host its company website with SolutionPro to achieve high availability. It later expanded this deployment to additional applications and managed services, as Container and Packaging Supply’s growing business demanded the reliability, data protection, cost-effectiveness and flexible remote access that SolutionPro provided.
High Reliability Becomes a Must
 “We found that as the web was becoming a more important part of our business, we needed better reliability and uptime,” said Jeff McCauley, Vice President of Container and Packaging Supply, Inc. “At that time, the web was 20% of our business. It is, in one way or another, responsible for 90% of our business now.”
Container and Packaging Supply is a distributor of packaging containers, including bottles, jars, buckets and lids fabricated from plastic, glass and metal. Based in Eagle, Idaho, it was founded 22 years ago and today employs 40 people in Idaho and Kentucky.
“Originally we just used the usual $10.99-a-month kind of host that you can find anywhere online,” said McCauley. But as the website grew in importance and became a major sales channel, they realized they needed a more robust and secure hosting platform.
SolutionPro Delivers Reliable Hosting and More
After researching several hosting providers, they decided on SolutionPro. “We chose SolutionPro initially because they were local,” he said. “I was able to tour their facilities. It wasn’t someone with a server sitting in his garage. I saw the battery backup, the redundant Internet connectivity. I was very comfortable with their claims for uptime. If we had a problem, we could drive to the site and actually talk to someone.”
Container and Packaging Supply began by hosting its company website at SolutionPro’s colocation facility. This included a web server and Microsoft SQL Server database which SolutionPro’s technical experts managed and backed up. Since then, it has enlisted SolutionPro to host its accounting software and email. Users at the company’s multiple locations access applications remotely through a Citrix server at the facility. Furthermore, SolutionPro provides monitoring and support for its office network.
McCauley continued, “We’ll regularly call them with questions about email, and they’re very good about responding and resolving our issues. So in short, basically all of our IT needs are taken care of through SolutionPro.”
The Results – High Reliability, Flexible Access, Cost-effectiveness
“The major benefit is reliability,” said McCauley. “Our website is always up.”
“Because of their stability and reliability, we are able to host all of our software at their location, which allows us to run remote sites very easily. They provide backup, so we have security of having our data protected and stored. It also provides security for things like power outages and Internet connectivity disruption, so that our customers are still able to interact with our company through our website when we are unavailable.”
Another benefit is disaster recovery. “In the event of a catastrophe at our location, we could very quickly move to another location, set up several computers and phones, and could be running and utilizing our data again in a couple hours,” he said.
McCauley believes it is more cost-effective to host with SolutionPro than to manage it themselves. Not only would they have to hire an IT administrator, but the hidden costs of downtime from hardware failure, network interruptions and power outages actually make a do-it-yourself approach more costly to the business.
Looking Forward
Container and Packaging Supply’s future hosting plans will depend on business growth as well as new offerings from SolutionPro. “I believe they’re working on a new email solution that I would be excited about,” he said.
About Container & Packaging Supply
Container & Packaging Supply is a family-owned business that has been providing packaging and logistical expertise for over 35 years. Headquartered in Eagle, Idaho (seven miles west of Idaho's capital, Boise) Container & Packaging Supply has expanded its operations beyond a primarily local Northwestern business to serving customers in all 50 states and over 70 foreign countries. Container & Packaging Supply strives to build partnerships with customers and vendors by providing packaging and logistical expertise in an accurate, adaptable, consistent, honest, proactive, and responsive way.
Container & Packaging Supply can be contacted by any of the following methods:
www.containerandpackaging.com | 1-800-473-4144 |
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
|
