WAYNE, Pa.—May 2, 2016 – Evolve IP, The Cloud Services Company™, today announced that METRO Regional Transit Authority (RTA), the city-wide bus service for more than five million passengers across Akron and Summit County, Ohio, has partnered with Evolve IP’s Private Cloud Consulting team to seamlessly transition from a legacy on-premise data center to a virtualized on-premise private cloud to better manage operations and create new opportunities for innovation.
More than five million passengers each year count on METRO RTA for reliable, safe, cost-effective transportation. With ever-changing business and community needs, the organization maintains an ongoing commitment to innovation and modernization. That commitment led METRO RTA to move to a virtualized data center, as well as deploying virtualized desktops and thin client solutions to gain efficient server and compute resource utilization.
Through virtualization, Evolve IP provided solutions to several complex challenges. METRO RTA gained simplified management of its servers and desktops having deployed 40 PCs and nearly 40 thin client machines across the organization’s two primary locations and one satellite office. Data Systems Manager Mark Hobson is now able to access and manage METRO RTA’s servers from an iPad at home and can also manage PCs without the need to touch them individually. The private cloud was enabled through solutions from multiple partners, including HP and its 3PAR storage solution to deliver guaranteed uptime.
“Evolve IP was the natural choice for our virtualization initiative. The company’s experienced engineers and the strong relationships with key vendors, were critical to our success,” noted Hobson. “The Evolve IP team is an indispensable resource for the METRO RTA. Many elements of the transit system’s data and day-to-day IT functions operate on solutions designed and/or implemented through their expertise.”
“METRO RTA’s ongoing commitment to modernization has been critical to the organization’s success,” said Dave Samic, Evolve IP’s Vice President of Midwest Engineering. “It was a great opportunity to work with Mark to architect and deploy their virtualized data center and we look forward to also working with them on their upcoming initiatives – onsite or in the cloud.”
Hobson noted, “With day-to-day IT operations now streamlined, I’ve had more time to focus on strategic initiatives – including our most ambitious customer-facing deployment yet.” In 2016, METRO RTA will go live with innovative bus tracking software. Riders will receive live updates on arrival times and the quantity of people already on the bus through an “Uber-like” interface. “Dave Samic from Evolve IP was instrumental in implementing the networking solutions that were necessary to make it all work,” added Hobson. Following the deployment of the highly anticipated bus tracking system, METRO RTA will also leverage Samic to evaluate Evolve IP’s hosted solutions for upcoming initiatives.
One of the nation’s fastest growing cloud companies, Evolve IP provides cloud services in virtually every industry including: healthcare, legal, insurance, banking, technology, travel, veterinary medicine, and retail and to some of the world’s most recognizable brands. The company’s Evolve IP OneCloudTM solution allows organizations to migrate multiple cloud computing and cloud communications services onto a single, unified platform including: virtual data centers / servers, disaster recovery, virtual desktops, IP phone systems / unified communications, contact centers, and more.
