Case Study: Rosslyn Analytics

Sector:
Professional Services

Business Objective:
Protect Your Business

Constant availability from high performance servers has been key to Rosslyn Analytics’ success.

The customer

Rosslyn Analytics, the pioneer and leader in software as a service (SaaS) cloud computing spend analysis, has radically transformed the economics of business and technology by giving everyone within a company on-demand access to all internal and external data that is required to reduce costs, improve profitability and manage risks.

Quick facts

Regularly process more than 450,000 transactions per hour
Pioneer and leader in software as a service cloud computing spend analysis.

Constant availability essential

Developed by Rosslyn Analytics, Rapidintel, the world’s fastest open web-based analytics platform, is a fully managed and hosted spend analysis service that integrates data from multiple sources such as accounts payable, procurement, contracts, tax and travel, into a single online view of all organisational spend.

Recognised by industry analysts as an innovator of advanced spend analytics, Rosslyn Analytics is fast becoming the preferred cost-effective alternative to traditional on-premise or hybrid solutions, enabling customers to be up and running with accurate spend visibility within a matter of weeks.

One of Rosslyn Analytics’ key differentiators is the ability to handle large amounts of data. To give you an idea, the servers Kcom have provided to Rosslyn Analytics to power the rapidintel.com platform regularly process more than 450,000 transactions per hour, equating to 150 gigabytes of data each month. It is therefore imperative that the underlying IT equipment delivers superior performance and reliability to customers to support real-time, on-demand decisions that drive corporate performance.

Fast expansion

With a clear objective to address these critical considerations, Rosslyn Analytics approached managed communications provider Kcom, part of the KCOM Group, to support its communications needs.

To begin with, Kcom proposed and created a single server solution. This worked well, but due to the fast expansion of Rosslyn Analytics, and consequently the increased volume of data going through the award-winning spend analytics platform, a second server was soon needed. These servers are load-balanced so in the frequent event of heavy traffic, the servers are fully optimised and fully secure.

Kcom proposed solutions that, rather than being ‘off the shelf’, were completely tailored to Rosslyn Analytics’ needs. In order to ensure that these tailored solutions continue to meet the needs of the business Kcom provided regular review meetings with a service manager. Additionally, a single point of contact and access to technical help fostered trust in Kcom.

Uninterrupted service

The hosting solution that Kcom delivered has run without a hitch since the day it was first implemented. Constant availability from high performance servers has been key to Rosslyn Analytics’ success, and the solution has proved to be highly resilient even in times of heavy use. As a result Rosslyn Analytics is constantly able to put its trust in Kcom when it needs to. Speed of service is also an important quality; the servers run at high speed, providing query results within an average of five seconds.

Another critical aspect of the solution was that it had to be flexible. “Our business has grown at an unprecedented rate”, remarked Jeff Sweetman, “so we needed a solution that would grow with us and allow us to manage more data as our customer numbers increase.Kcom provided a scalable solution that has enabled this to happen. ”

Assured of the security and flexibility of its hosted service, Rosslyn Analytics is able to focus on its core competency, and give its customers the best possible experience.

What they say…

“It was important to find a hosting provider that would offer us a bespoke solution, primarily because our data requirements were literally challenging the standards in the management, processing and hosting of data. From the start, Kcom has shown a close understanding of the company and what we are trying to achieve”.

Jeff Sweetman, Chief Operating Officer, Rosslyn Analytics.

Where next for Rosslyn?

As the company continues to grow, Rosslyn Analytics is looking to add extra servers in the near future, and the hosting solution has been so successful that it is planning to implement an identical solution for its US operation.

Jeff Sweetman added: “Because of the reliability of Kcom’s solution, we have in turn been able to offer a high performance, always-available spend analysis service to our customers.”