Manage Multiple Cloud Platforms With Cloud Application Manager™ — How CenturyLink’s Managed Services Ease Infrastructure Headaches

TL; DR: CenturyLink uses IT outsourcing and cloud administration to relieve the complexities of IT infrastructure management and help enterprises deliver applications across multiple clouds. The company’s managed IT services provide businesses with improved security, migration guidance, and simplification of the roster of vendors with whom they work. By employing CenturyLink’s Cloud Application Manager, enterprises enjoy improved and simplified management of cloud environments, which saves money and allows teams to focus less on IT issues — and zero in on business objectives.

Leonteq was facing a challenge. The independent service provider for investment solutions was experiencing limitations due to dependencies on infrastructure requirements and needed a platform that was agnostic to the infrastructure provider. That way, Leonteq could initiate any new application set without worrying about dependencies.

Beyond that, the company also needed to address configuration and security requirements, which included the proper way to store passwords, fetch certificates, and configure virtual machines (VMs). At the time, Leonteq was employing a whole suite of applications developed in disparate programming languages and deployed to different types of environments. The company was aching for a solution that could be deployed to its own datacenter.

Fortunately, CenturyLink provided an answer in Cloud Application Manager, a platform designed to solve exactly that kind of problem. After partnering with CenturyLink, Leonteq IT teams in different geographic locations enjoyed instant sharing and collaboration on different applications, regardless of the infrastructure requirements. The company also began using third-party tools to deliver a more comprehensive solution for deployment, management, and ongoing security needs.

Because the Cloud Application Manager enabled Leonteq to improve software development processes, dev teams can now coordinate with product engineers to package the application script boxes and ensure common services are available in the company’s GIT repository.

This comprehensive approach to cloud management, coupled with the high level of support from the Cloud Application Manager team, is why so many businesses are turning to CenturyLink to help determine the best solutions to administer complex applications and environments.

CenturyLink offers comprehensive and flexible managed IT services, enabling businesses to focus on their missions rather than on the complexities of maintaining an IT infrastructure. The company acts as a single-source, turnkey solution with end-to-end support. CenturyLink also offers customers a team of dedicated professionals who “thrive in IT complexity.”

Brannan Matherson, Director of Product Management at CenturyLink, told us CenturyLink’s managed services have recently evolved to meet the needs of businesses that face modern IT challenges.

“Now we can provide a cloud methodology approach to applications and infrastructures,” he said. “That’s where I think we have some opportunity because we have a large core customer base there today.”

According to Brannan, the new approach allows CenturyLink to provide software and automation so customers can manage applications and infrastructure in multiple environments. These customers can enlist CenturyLink to manage those services for them.

Brannan cited three benefits businesses enjoy when offloading IT resources to CenturyLink. First, the company enables customers to simplify their lineup of vendors and providers. That’s because CenturyLink acts as a one-stop shop for cloud management.

That doesn’t mean the company forces people to adopt specific types of services, though. Brannan was quick to point out CenturyLink offers enormous flexibility in allowing customers to choose their own solutions.

Brannan cited enhanced security as another benefit of managed services. CenturyLink professionals offer guidance about security standards and best practices so customers can have peace of mind knowing their systems are locked down.

Finally, CenturyLink offers guidance to businesses across the lifecycle of their applications and infrastructure. That includes providing teams with helpful advice about migrations, such as DevOps transformational projects or born-in-the-cloud types of workloads and services that need to be built and architected in a cloud environment.

Many organizations have found the need to manage multiple cloud environments. They also need to match their applications with the right type of cloud platform. CenturyLink’s Cloud Application Manager is a multi-cloud management solution that offers a host of features and benefits.

By partnering with CenturyLink, businesses can improve management and scale cloud environments. Managed services have the effect of saving time, resources, and therefore money in cloud deployments. And the reliability of CenturyLink allows clients to focus on their businesses without having to worry about IT infrastructure.

Delivering Software Automation for Cloud-Savvy Organizations

Brannan cited specific customer types CenturyLink sees as part of its target market — the first being businesses with a technical team of cloud-savvy professionals. They’re interested in moving out of the datacenter and into a public cloud environment.

For them, Brannan said, it’s all about delivering software and automation.

CenturyLink offers these customers a stack of services that helps them provide the applications required for their business. That way, they can build on the technology they’ve already invested in.

Brannan also noted multi-cloud management means CenturyLink embraces third-party platforms. The company does this so customers aren’t forced to use only CenturyLink technology or its datacenter. Instead, they can use Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services, and CenturyLink will offer a means of better managing those investments.

Managed Services Help Novice Cloud Users Migrate and Orchestrate

Brannan also said his team caters to businesses that aren’t cloud-savvy but want to move into the cloud. Customers who fit that profile don’t know much about Microsoft Azure or AWS, but they’re looking for managed services or an outsourcing partner for IT.

For those types of businesses, CenturyLink has built up internal expertise. Professionals who are certified experts on the Microsoft Azure and AWS platforms can talk to customers about managing workloads and provisioning in those environments.

Business owners interested in reduced IT costs are also a key part of CenturyLink’s target market. The company’s Cloud Application Manager helps customers gain better insight into which resources have been provisioned, how much they’re costing, how much they’re being utilized, and how companies can reallocate and optimize their environments.

Brannan noted IT shops sometimes run into capacity issues and cost overruns because they didn’t plan their infrastructure properly. It’s often the case that “rogue IT elements” use IT resources in violation of company policies.

The Cloud Application Manager enables businesses to create IT policies, centralize IT resource management, and monitor resource utilization. In addition, the platform offers security guidance that Brannan called part of a “holistic solution” CenturyLink offers customers.

According to Brannan, CenturyLink takes a “DevOps” approach that involves a rapid delivery, continuous integration model. However, he was sure to reinforce the notion that nothing is forced on the customer. Businesses that use CenturyLink services have the flexibility to decide when and how to deploy the updates, patches, and services they want in their environment.

Going forward, Brannan said CenturyLink is moving higher up the stack in terms of managed services. He told us the company will build a “broad scope” of solutions around the types of applications that customers are building.

Brannan also said CenturyLink is integrating with security solutions. This will bring increased peace of mind to customers who are concerned about data security threats.

Undoubtedly, this commitment to security is one of the reasons Leonteq was attracted to CenturyLink’s Cloud Application Manager and highlights why so many enterprises are turning to the company to ease the headaches of doing business in the cloud.