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Connance, Inc. (now Waystar) provides predictive analytic technology solutions that enable healthcare providers to optimize financial and clinical workflows. Connance utilizes a cloud-based optimization platform to deliver its predictive analytic technology solutions to customers. This is a critical element of their operation because it is the foundation of their business solutions.
When the infrastructure of physical servers located in a Rackspace datacenter wasn’t meeting requirements for turnaround, costs and overall security, the IT team at Connance sought a better solution.
Because Connance had standardized on Microsoft and utilized Microsoft SQL Database Software, they looked to Microsoft Azure. Connance engaged with ProArch, a Microsoft Gold Partner known for their cloud expertise, to provide a consulting assessment, proof of concept, and to develop and implement a customized Azure migration strategy.
“I was confident moving forward with the project, with the ProArch team by our side every step of the way through the data center migration and ongoing maintenance and optimization.” -David Franklin, COO Connance
First, ProArch conducted a Proof of Concept (POC) to provide data for optimization. The right-sizing for virtual machines (VMs) was determined to give improved performance across the workloads and reduce processing times they were experiencing with Rackspace, which was a driving factor for the change.
The POC showed the baseline needed for each application server, and it proved that with Azure’s scalability, they could actually run fewer servers.
Phase 1 focused on an Azure design implementation with server migration of development staging and disaster recovery computer environments from Rackspace dedicated servers to Azure. To increase security and prevent exposure of proprietary information to other systems, separate subnets were put in place isolating development, disaster recovery, quality assurance, staging, and research.
With the success of Phase 1, the team embarked on Phase 2 of the project which included the implementation of an Azure design of the production compute environments and migration of all production resources from Rackspace dedicated servers and virtual servers to Azure.
Connance is known in the industry as an innovator, and it was important to utilize technology in their operations that would improve performance and provide a competitive advantage.
“The improved turnaround time and the scalability of Azure allows us to take on larger customer projects without having a long stop gap between getting the new contract and getting the customer up and running in our world. This allows us to be more responsive to customers and we can achieve our goals much faster.” -Tim Rogers, Manager, Information Technology & Security, Connance
The transition to Azure has brought the following benefits:
"ProArch continually demonstrated great expertise and has been an asset to us. When we needed help, we could rely on ProArch to jump on it immediately to either to identify a solution or schedule time to work on it. Since ProArch has such a strong relationship with Microsoft, they are able to reach out to resources not available to us and able to get the answers we need.”
