ABOUT AUTONATION
With the most J.D. Power Dealer of Excellence honorees in the country and the highest reputation score in auto retail, AutoNation is an industry leader, the largest US automotive retailer, and a Fortune500 company. The company has sold and serviced vehicles to 13,000,000 customers and counting via more than 21,000 associates in over 300 locations across 18 states.
AutoNation’s singular focus is transforming the business of automotive retail by establishing a new standard for excellence in sales and service. They have pioneered programs around transparent pricing and financing that have led to innovative in-person selection and online shopping driven by customer satisfaction.
THE CHALLENGE
Computing challenges detour dependable operations
AutoNation needs stable IT systems when its operations and customers’ car-buying experiences are reliant on the availability of its applications. The company migrated its disaster recovery environment to the cloud, but its applications and data were too complex and required too much horsepower for its newly-devised cloud arrangement.
Legacy systems and the cost effectiveness of the available options (a cloud provider that could provide an appropriate amount of power or a third-party, on-premises provider) were considered. The company opted to move away from the cloud in favor of a colocation provider to house its DR environment and deliver the capacity it required within a highly-dense footprint.
THE SOLUTION
Power and cooling innovations and onsite expertise bolster IT performance and availability
Working with CDW Aggregation, Infrastructure, and Managed Services—a consulting firm specializing in technology solutions—AutoNation created a high-density colocation configuration that satisfied its compute needs, managed cabling complexities, and enabled growth and scalability, all while controlling costs.
A Flexential Texas data center was chosen as the best fit for building this blueprint and providing the power and cooling resources to manage it. A mix of technological prowess and customer service combined with 24/7 expert support and commitment to partnering with its customers that made the choice clear for a colocated DR solution.
“Flexential was able to achieve for us what few providers could: a high-density DR environment at one of its newest and most innovative data centers,” said Adam Rasner, VP of Technology Operations at AutoNation.
THE RESULTS
Driving down high-density configuration costs
When Flexential and AutoNation migrated the retailer’s DR environment to the new data center, its Denver-based production environment was fully replicated so it protects the company’s data and provides availability during an outage.
“I am really impressed with the smooth process,” said Rasner. “When we gave them the rack elevations and the proposed design, they didn’t blink at all. When we actually implemented it, they even offered to go even more dense. We really wanted to pack the equipment in to keep a small footprint.”
