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Supporting the transition from print to digital media: Aller Media future-proofs its IT operations

 

 

 

Aller Media

Aller Media future-proofs its IT operations to meet the increasing demand for digital content, using Azure stack HCI.

aller-medier-HQ-twoday-case

The situation

Aller Media, a leading Nordic publisher of magazines and newspapers, faced the challenge of adapting to the increasing demand for digital content. To meet this demand, Aller Media chose to optimize its IT infrastructure using Azure stack HCI, which combines local servers with Cloud.


Aller Media operates in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden and manages a wide range of both print and digital media properties. Their online platforms and social media have become a central place for access to Allers magazines and newspapers. The Pling app, available across devices such as computer, tablet, and smartphone, gives subscribers unlimited access to Nordic as well as international publications.

 

The expectations of media consumers pose new demands

With today's media consumers' expectations of instant access to digital content, Aller Media faced external pressure to deliver the content quickly and efficiently.

Hampus Nordanfjäll, Team Lead for IT Operations at Aller Media, confirmed this challenge by pointing out the need to adapt to the digital transformation in order to avoid losing readers:

"We were early to embrace the digital transition- a decision that has paid off. In some areas, we now generate more revenue from digital content than we do from print."

 

To address this challenge and ensure a high quality of services, Aller Media wanted to upgrade its data center architecture. The choice fell on twoday, Lenovo Gold Partner and ThinkAgile & Storage Expert Partner, an experienced technology partner in this type of upgrade.

Aller Medier ændrede medievaner datacenterarkitektur

Expected data growth needs to be supported

Aller Media has been running a hybrid cloud environment for several years, combining local data center solutions with Microsoft Azure. With many critical workloads, such as content and subscription management systems, running on local servers, and backups of data in the Cloud, Aller's infrastructure began to be limited. 

"Our infrastructure running on local servers could no longer maintain the high level of performance required to run core workloads efficiently, or the capacity needed to support our expected data growth."

Hampus Nordanfjäll, Team Lead IT Operations, Aller Media

twoday, a Lenovo Gold Partner and ThinkAgile & Storage Expert partner, was chosen to identify the ideal solution.

Why 
Lenovo?

  • Lenovo ThinkAgile MX platform was selected as the most appropriate solution: a modern, high performance hyper-converged infrastructure solution (HCI) that integrates seamlessly with Azure services.

  • twoday implemented five all-flash Lenovo ThinkAgile MX certified nodes in Aller's data center, configured as a single software-defined cluster with Azure Stack HCI operating system and Hyper-V virtualization. This platform, equipped with scalable 2nd generation Intel® Xeon® processors and Intel® Optane™ P4800X Performance NVMe PCIe SSDs, delivers high throughput, low latency, and impressive performance.

  • With Lenovo XClarity Integrator and Windows Admin Center tools, Aller benefits from a seamless management experience across the physical infrastructure, virtualized compute and storage resources, and Azure cloud services.

“Lenovo ThinkAgile MX delivers the best of both worlds: the flexibility and scalability of the cloud and the security and control of the on-premises infrastructure, all in one box. The Azure Stack HCI software comes pre-integrated and pre-tested, so installation is quick and easy, and you can get started right away.” 

Hampus Nordanfjäll, Team Leader, IT Operations, Aller Media

Want to know more?

Get in touch with us today

Magnus Agervold

Head of Sales and Product Development

magnus.agervold@twoday.com

+45 51 57 83 32