HighPoint Technology Group cuts infrastructure maintenance time commitments in half

Gaining cost control and agility

HighPoint Technology Group is a managed services provider delivering a wide range of solutions, including IT infrastructure management, cybersecurity, networking and more. Until 2024, it provided these services by operating its own infrastructure to develop and deploy solutions tailored to each client. By making the move to Equinix MPC, the company has streamlined operations, achieved time and cost savings, and strengthened its market position.

High cost and management burdens

HighPoint Technology Group relied on self-managed servers using VMware Cloud Foundation to host its solutions. One of the key challenges it faced was the need to monitor and manage physical servers. This increased the strain on HighPoint Technology Group’s team, reducing the time that technicians could dedicate to support customers.

Additionally, the cost of purchasing and maintaining physical hardware, combined with VMware licensing fees, made the strategy suboptimal from a cost perspective. This was especially true after HighPoint Technology Group’s VMware licensing costs increased by 400% after Broadcom acquired VMware in 2024.

Managed Private Cloud to the rescue

HighPoint Technology Group worked with Equinix to design and implement a Managed Private Cloud (MPC) environment tailored to its needs.

The setup includes six distinct nodes, making it easy to segment workloads between physical servers. It also simplifies licensing: As a Broadcom Pinnacle Partner, Equinix provides VMware Cloud Foundation licenses as part of the MPC offering, eliminating the need to purchase separate licenses.

From an IT management perspective, too, MPC significantly reduces complexity. Equinix fully manages the data center space and physical servers that now power HighPoint Technology Group’s solutions, allowing HighPoint’s team to focus on delivering solutions instead of managing the underlying infrastructure.

The solution “takes the burden off my staff, saves us a lot of headache and shortens our time to market by half,” says Steve Guistwite, CEO, HighPoint Technology Group.

Even as Equinix manages the infrastructure, HighPoint and its customers remain in control of their data and its movement. While the MPC environment can harness Equinix Fabric to boost network connections to external resources like Microsoft Azure, HighPoint Technology Group retains full control over routing. This helps ensure flexibility and privacy.

IT efficiency that drives business growth

By migrating from self-managed infrastructure to MPC, HighPoint Technology Group has made remarkable advancements in optimizing operations, resources and costs, all of which open the door to continued growth for the company.

The company can focus on building and deploying client solutions with VMware Cloud Foundation, without the distraction of managing the underlying infrastructure. Migrating to MPC is estimated to save about 50% of the time spent by staff on infrastructure maintenance.

In addition, HighPoint Technology Group no longer needs to bear the cost of purchasing physical hardware or managing hardware refresh cycles. With the integrated Broadcom product licensing as part of MPC, HighPoint Technology Group also benefits from lower software costs than it paid when licensing VMware solutions from Broadcom directly. The company’s three-year contract helps provide cost predictability and stability.

With MPC, HighPoint Technology Group decreased about two-thirds of its infrastructure deployment and management costs. Backed by these savings, it can offer services at more competitive price points, enhancing its capabilities for business growth.

Benefits

Rapid time-to-value

HighPoint Technology Group gained design and implementation guidance to migrate to the MPC environment in only three months.

Low costs

Integrated VMware Cloud Foundation licensing and simplified operations enable the delivery of managed services at about one-third of HighPoint Technology Group’s previous infrastructure spend.

Predictable costs and stability

The company secured a straightforward pricing model based on server compute and memory capacity, without network egress or disproportionate overage charges.

Strict client privacy

With complete control over network routing and segmenting of customer workloads between servers, HighPoint Technology Group can maintain an exceptional degree of customer privacy and security.

Agility to scale

HighPoint Technology Group can effectively serve its expanding customer base through the ability to easily add nodes and storage capacity to the MPC environment.

Public cloud integration

High-performance hybrid cloud services are delivered using Equinix Fabric®, integrating workloads in private cloud environments with other resources hosted in public clouds.