Key points

• Established resilient, high-performance connectivity between Hawaii and major US West Coast cloud regions leveraging Zenlayer Cloud Connect
• Improved cloud application performance and enabled multi-region VPC architecture with dynamic routing and redundancy via Zenlayer’s global backbone
• Consolidated multi-vendor complexity into a single service order with Zenlayer, simplifying operations and unlocking better ROI for cloud investments

 

About the customer

Industry: Healthcare
Needs: Network stabilization, cost optimization, cross-border connectivity, latency reduction, direct cloud connectivity, simplified infrastructure management
Zenlayer services used: IP Transit, Private Connect, Cloud Router, Cloud Connect, Zenlayer-managed Equinix Cloud Exchange

The customer is a healthcare provider serving the State of Hawaii through a public-private partnership with top-tier commercial healthcare and health insurance providers in the US.

The company wanted to modernize and transform, aiming to leverage public clouds like AWS and Azure in combination with SaaS services like Salesforce. However, Hawaii’s geographic isolation and limited telecom infrastructure made it difficult to access cloud regions in the West Coast efficiently and cost-effectively.

 

The challenge: modernizing cloud infrastructure with limited connectivity and high telco costs

Although the customer has two existing data centers on Oahu and managed their own internal networking infrastructure, connecting to cloud services on the US mainland proved challenging.

Public network routes were unable to deliver the performance or reliability needed for their cloud workloads, and the lack of major cloud availability zones in the state meant that cloud access required reaching distant locales like San Jose and Seattle, often over inconsistent or costly telecom paths.

To best serve their users, the healthcare provider needed resilient, cost-effective connectivity from Hawaii to multiple cloud endpoints. Going through traditional telecom providers to achieve their goal would require piecing together multiple vendors, leading to increased complexity and costs while offering little flexibility.

 

Simplifying trans-Pacific connectivity with built-in resiliency

To overcome the state’s geographic isolation and related public internet performance variability, we deployed multiple 10 Gbps transport circuits to interconnect the customer’s two Oahu-based data centers to Los Angeles and San Jose. This enables a high-performance, protected  trans-Pacific route directly to the US mainland.

By routing their traffic over our global private backbone, the healthcare provider can now auto-reroute around any network issues to ensure consistent uptime and reliable performance. This ensures that users can quickly and smoothly access critical healthcare applications hosted in cloud regions thousands of kilometers away.

 

Unlocking seamless access to cloud and SaaS platforms

As the customer continues their transformation in the cloud, they needed direct, low-latency connections to environments like AWS US West (San Jose and Oregon) and SaaS platforms like Salesforce.

Leveraging Zenlayer Cloud Connect, our onramps for direct connectivity to major public clouds and cloud services, we provided secure handoffs to the customer’s business platforms via our backbone network and integration with Equinix Fabric (ECX). This eliminated the need for the healthcare provider to manage multiple third-party vendors or custom routing, giving them flexible, scalable access to mission-critical services via a single service order, streamlining procurement and accelerating deployment.

The customer now enjoys improved application performance along with more streamlined cloud operations.

 

Optimizing network design for improved agility and ROI

As their cloud strategy evolves, the customer realized that their existing bandwidth commitments to connectivity on the East Coast no longer aligned with their current operational needs. We enabled them to reallocate their investment toward West Coast cloud endpoints where their workloads actually lived.

This flexible, usage-driven network model not only improved application performance but also helped the customer maximize their return on infrastructure spend. Their executives appreciate that Zenlayer’s commercial terms give them the agility of on-demand billing and scalable capacity that keeps up with their evolving business needs.

With a resilient, regionally diverse setup that supports multiple VPCs, the healthcare provider now benefits from an easily scalable architecture that grows with their business demands as they further their cloud journey.

 

Looking ahead

Leveraging our secure, low-latency global private backbone and Cloud Connect service, the company is now ready to scale its cloud services and deliver essential healthcare to users all over Hawaii with greater reliability and improved digital experiences. As the healthcare provider continues to modernize their infrastructure, we will continue to help streamline their operations to ensure performance and resiliency so they can focus on developing and delivering healthcare innovations across the Pacific.

 

Simplify and accelerate expansions with a one-stop shop

Leveraging our cloud networking, managed services, and premium local networking, this Hawaii-based healthcare service provider overcame regional infrastructure challenges to modernize and better serve users. They now enjoy resilient, low-latency connectivity to AWS US West and Salesforce, all managed through a single service order.

If you’re looking to expand your business’s global footprint, streamline operations, or accelerate apps or services to improve user experience, talk to a Zenlayer solution expert today!

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