For over 20 years Queensland company DataBasics has been helping some of Australia's biggest names in government, education and industry manage their digital data assets. For most of those 20 years its offerings have all been premises-based, but cloud computing is changing digital asset management, just as it is changing almost every aspect of IT, and DataBasics wanted to move with the times.
The company recognised that the provision of digital asset management services from the cloud was becoming not only practical but also inevitable as businesses increasingly discovered the benefits of software as a service.
It has chosen digital asset management software from Swiss company PicturePark for its cloud-based offering and BitCloud as the cloud service provider to host the software.
DataBasics director, Ricky Patten, said DataBasics needed to ensure that client data stayed in Australia "My experience with customers told me that we really needed a hosting partner that hosted fully in Australia, because we deal with a lot of government clients."
This proved to be none too easy. "When we really dug deeply into our shortlist - which was chosen based upon what they offered, the price, availability, the engagement with the customer - we found that in all cases there was some level of overseas engagement," Patten said.
After further widening the search, DataBasics discovered BitCloud. "It is owned and serviced by Australians and offered an Australian-housed solution, which met all of the governance criteria," Patten said.
DataBasics made the decision to host its Australian Picturepark-based digital asset management service with BitCloud in late October 2013 and set up the service through December and January 2014. It now has six customers using the service.
Patten said that BitCloud was also able to offer other significant benefits. "BitCloud is able to host the Picturepark solution and fully manage DataBasics’ SQL Server and Microsoft environment, including all optimisation, maintenance and provisioning. If DataBasics had to run SQL server itself, training and resourcing would have doubled our internal costs."
BitCloud also worked with DataBasics to identify the best way to manage the heavy upfront load as customers transferred their digital assets to the new service, without incurring cost penalties.
BitCloud is also supporting DataBasics' customers that have opted to store their digital assets in their own private cloud. "That has now become an additional product that we can offer," Patten said.
DataBasics has now moved its own demonstration servers over to BitCloud. "We offer our customers a demonstration, or sandbox environment," Patten said. "We used to run this service on internal servers and keeping those machines running would take a minimum of ten hours per week. We have moved that all into a BitCloud environment. It is faster, it is easier for people to access and it is no different for the engineers to manage."
Vic Cinc, CEO of BitCloud, said that cloud was transforming the way the Australian mid-market and enterprises operate. “Cloud is about disrupting the way business has always been done and offering end-to-end services. Managed cloud and IT services are at the core of what we do,” he said.
He added: “DataBasics was truly in tune with this disruption trend well before we were chosen as their hosting partner. Now, Ricki and his team focus on delivering excellent service and on developing new revenue streams.”
