Lacerta: Modernizing IT Operations with Tailored Cloud Solutions
Learn how Packaging Solutions brand, Lacerta, transformed its IT operations using TierPoint DR and Cloud services.
Introduction
Every component of food packaging has an origin, and Lacerta likely plays a crucial role in packaging some of your favorite foods, like hummus. The company specializes in thermoforming package solutions for the food industry, doing a lot of custom packaging for specific use cases. In their line of work, Lacerta understands the importance of tailor-made solutions built to fit a specific vision, so it comes as no surprise that one of the things they value most when working with TierPoint is that the process was anything but pre-formed.
Challenges
Lacerta was acquired by a private equity firm in 2020 after many years of operation as a successful family-owned business. When the new firm came in, it became clear that there was a dire need for an IT department, instead of merely relying on consultative services.
Before working with TierPoint, all Lacerta systems were on-premises and needed to be replaced. The company had aging hardware, outdated software, and out-of-support infrastructure in general. Lacerta needed to grow an IT team and work with an external provider with a proven track record who could illuminate the path ahead.
Wassim Sasa, the Director of Information Technology at Lacerta, knew that he wanted to move the on-premises production environment to a cloud-based solution. The complexity of how the company accesses some applications, including its mission-critical ERP systems, meant that a cloud solution with a 3rd party vendor was the most appropriate choice. Given Sasa’s previous relationship with TierPoint, he contacted us to initiate the setup of a managed cloud infrastructure.
Solution
Because their infrastructure was so outdated, and Lacerta knew not everything could migrate overnight, we started with a phased migration and replicated it for disaster recovery (DR) simultaneously. To ensure they were protected during the transition, TierPoint provided a temporary Disaster Recovery solution in a diverse location set in advance of the transition.
With the migration from production servers over to the new production environment, Sasa felt comforted by the backups: “At least I know my servers are being protected, so it was an immediate solution to help me sleep at night, knowing my servers were being backed up offline.”
The new acquisition of Lacerta came with significant investments to make upgrades, not only in moving to a cloud architecture, but also in adding new firewalls, switches, and upgrading all servers. The new data center has built-in redundancy and service-level agreements (SLAs) that bring peace of mind to Lacerta. The new infrastructure not only caters to the company’s current needs but also provides the scalability the company needs to support its growing business in the event of future mergers and acquisitions. Elasticity is now built into the solution.
TierPoint also helped with an Office 365 migration, where Lacerta had to consolidate 2 tenants into one. While there were misconfigurations in the previous tenant, the move was seamless for Lacerta: “I must say, they were phenomenal. They were excellent through the migration and post-migration support.” - Wassim Sasa, Director of Information Technology
Results
The phased approach Lacerta took with TierPoint not only established a strong foundation that made it easy to spin up new servers and migrate data as needed but also provided a flexible transition plan tailored to meet Lacerta's specific needs. This plan was designed to minimize downtime and data loss during the transition to the new cloud-based solution, a critical factor for any organization moving its operations to the cloud.
Lacerta could control the speed and precision of the migration all in-house, allowing them to manage the process in a way that best suited their operations and schedule. This flexibility was particularly beneficial given Lacerta’s IT team size, which is currently composed of 5 people.
In addition to the transition plan, TierPoint also offered 'remote hands' services. These services were utilized by Lacerta for onsite tasks such as plugging in equipment or racking and stacking, providing an extra level of support, and ensuring a smooth and efficient migration process.
Moreover, the accessibility of TierPoint's teams proved to be invaluable. They were always ready to step in and provide assistance whenever needed, further facilitating the migration process and ensuring that Lacerta could focus on its core operations without worrying about the technical aspects of the transition. This level of support and accessibility is a testament to TierPoint's commitment to their clients' success.
The new active directory, application servers, and data migration were built with growth in mind. Lacerta now has very scalable resources in a new virtual environment and can also split the current workload between multiple servers to keep all users from hitting the same place.
Quantitatively, Lacerta has kept tabs on servers every week to monitor performance. They’ve also noticed qualitative improvements in the user experience, hearing that team members can perform tasks like transactions much more quickly.
One thing Lacerta values about TierPoint is its ability to collaborate with businesses to customize solutions to fit customer needs. Sasa likes that TierPoint offers “multiple facets of different technologies that you can implement in a custom-tailored way to meet the uniqueness of any organization.” If you’re looking for a tailor-made solution that makes sense for your business, contact us today.
At A Glance
Industry
Packaging
Technology
Microsoft 365
Multitenant cloud with backups
SQL
Disaster Recovery w/replication
Challenges
After many successful years as a family-run business, Lacerta found it necessary to establish a dedicated IT department and transition to an off-premises cloud-based solution. TierPoint helped establish the IT infrastructure and cloud environment required for their digital transformation.
Solution
By adopting a phased cloud migration and leveraging Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS), powered by Zerto, Lacerta was able to enjoy a seamless transition confident their workloads were being protected. Additionally, TierPoint facilitated in a seamless consolidation of a Microsoft 365 tenant.
Results
Lacerta’s scalable, self-managed cloud boosted performance and user experience, thanks to the flexibility and customization of the phased cloud migration. Now Lacerta has infrastructure that’s poised and ready for the future.
Website
https://lacerta.com/
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