Amway operates in more than 100 countries and territories around the globe and is the world’s #1 direct-selling business. However, an occasional mystery can occur in any business, no matter how successful or large.
When Amway started experiencing an unexplained slowdown each Friday at exactly 7:00 PM and wasn’t able to identify the cause, they knew they needed a knowledgeable tech partner that they could trust. Luckily, Amway had already discovered Centroid’s incredible service and depth of knowledge, so they knew who to call.
client
Amway
challenge
For 10 Months, a mysterious, weekly slowdown had affected the Amway systems every Friday at 7:00 pm, which impacted reporting.
solution
Centroid found and identified the issue within a couple of weeks, and they also pitched in to give Amway extra bandwidth at a critical time
Amway’s mysterious slowdown and more
For 10 months, Amway had experienced a weekly reoccurring performance issue in their global data warehouse, which caused a slowdown every Friday at exactly 7:00 PM that impacted reporting. Amway knew the slowdown could be fixed, but their busy in-house team was unable to identify the cause of the problem. In addition, the client was looking to implement proactive monitoring with metrics, multi-faceted dashboards, and alerting that would help streamline IT operations and improve uptime.
With the proactive monitoring system in place, they’d be able to easily identify the cause of future slowdowns and they’d have the power to improve resource utilization and capacity management across the board. Luckily, they knew exactly where to find the partner who could help them with these tasks.
Centroid: the team that dives in to help out
Amway met Centroid in 2008 when the direct-selling business hired Centroid to help with a performance issue. They were so impressed with Centroid’s in-depth knowledge across the full technology stack that they’ve called in Centroid numerous more times over the years. “Centroid is very responsive and adaptable to whatever our changing requirements might be,” said Tony Deller, Manager Data Center Techincal Engineering, Amway. “Whatever we ask them to do, we know they’ll deliver a solution and not leave us hanging.”
In fact, Amway considers Centroid critical to the functioning of their technology. They refer to their tech as a “three-legged stool,” comprised of Oracle, Amway, and Centroid, since the consultant brings such deep technical expertise to implementing and maintaining Oracle products. “Centroid has a large skillset and they’re very open and honest, which makes them a great sounding board,” said Mr. Deller. “They’re a great group of people to work with, from owners down to technicians.”
An insightful, fast solution is “business as usual” for Centroid
Due to their long working relationship, Amway called in Centroid to help find the root cause of the global data center slowdown. Centroid was able to identify and correct the problem in just a couple of weeks, while also working on Amway’s predictive monitoring project.
That wasn’t all. Centroid also assisted Amway with their upcoming Oracle EBS implementation, helping them stay on track for their 2019 go-live by quickly building environments and upgrading their Exadata solution.
It may sound like this was a heavy workload for Centroid, but they’re used to pitching in to help the Amway team. Since Centroid is located only a couple of hours away from the Amway offices, the direct-selling business is in the habit of calling Centroid to schedule as-needed jobs with short notice, including full-stack performance tuning, upgrades, patching/maintenance, and more. No matter what, Centroid is always there to provide extra bandwidth and manpower for the Amway team, whenever they need it.
“Centroid is always there and wanting to help us out and go that extra distance for us,” says Mr. Deller. “There’s no one time they went the extra mile, instead, they’re always on the path to that extra mile.”
“Centroid has very credible resources, they take the job seriously, they’re passionate and easy to work with, and I would recommend them to any other professional in my field. They truly treat our business as if it’s their own, which means a lot.”
Tony Deller, Data Center Technical Engineering, Amway