Summit, formerly Deft

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Founder and CTO of a SaaS company focusing on software infrastructure tools.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Deft?

As part of an acquisition Wildbit needed to migrate a primary SaaS product to a new managed environment within the data center. Since the product contains a large dataset and timing was critical, we needed a solution that could help us migrate with both environments being live at the same time.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We're already a happy client of Deft for over 10 years. While we considered a larger cloud provider, they were not able to provide the flexibility and low latency that was needed.

Describe the project in detail and walk through their service package.

This project involved setting up a Proof Of Concept environment in Deft's Enterprise Cloud to evaluate how this new environment would connect back to our existing environment. Deft was able to turn this around quickly, allowing us to test performance and reliability in short time in order to make a final decision.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We worked closely with Brad, our account rep who coordinated the proper technical teams on the backend to architect the solution for us.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

After the POC, we were able to confirm that both environments could work well together, which would allow us to migrate parts of the infrastructure in phases. Once this was set up and proven, Deft helped us spec the final environment and hardware which was converted into a longer term contract.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

A project like this requires constant back and forth and lots of coordination. Brad was instrumental in coordination the right people during the process and responding quickly to keep the project on time. We worked via phone, email, and Zoom based on what worked best for the situation.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

We've been a long time customer of Deft, so we're well aware of their capabilities. In this project, the unique aspect was our flexibility in options. We were able to use a mix of owned hardware, managed cabinets, managed hardware, and managed cloud to pull off the best fit for the product and migration. This is something we had trouble doing with both of the larger cloud providers.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Not that I can think of.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the managing partner of PSD Solutions; we’re a software company based in Chicago, Illinois.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Deft?

We wanted to improve our Microsoft Azure environment.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We host our applications in Microsoft Azure, so Deft has enhanced our overall environment. We started by defining a project scope for an assessment, and they started implementing that.

What is the team composition?

We’ve been primarily working with three members of their team, including an account manager, a project manager, and an engineering architect.

How did you come to work with Deft?

They were referred to us by a client who collaborated with them.

How much have you invested in them?

We’ve spent around $20,000 with them so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in October 2021, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

The quality of their work is exceptional — the partnership with them has been great.

How did Deft perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is excellent; their communication and ability to stick to schedules and budgets are perfect. In terms of tools, we use email, phone calls, and regular meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their expertise and efficient teamwork are outstanding.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s anything they can improve on.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have clear deliverables and objectives in your head.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the enterprise system manager at the American College of Chest Physicians. We’re a medical association that publishes a medical journal, conducts live learning sessions, and has online resources for our members and people in chest and pulmonary medical care.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ServerCentral Turing Group?

We needed a partner to host our various websites on their servers.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

ServerCentral Turing Group (SCTG) hosts the servers, which also includes adjusting settings on the network side and troubleshooting any issues we have. We tell them what we want to accomplish, and they come up with the right solution. For the past year, they’ve also been helping set up a duplicate environment to bring up a whole new set of servers for a new website.

What is the team composition?

We interact with an account executive and then utilize a ticketing system that allows them to assign whoever they think is best suited to help us.

How did you come to work with ServerCentral Turing Group?

They were here before I was hired.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend about $8,000 a month, so about $384,000 in total.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in April 2015, and the partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Whenever we have issues with a server or network service, SCTG is always the first to respond with a correct answer. I’ve been extremely impressed with their troubleshooting skills.

How did ServerCentral Turing Group perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re responsive and have detailed documentation. They’re able to remember past solutions in order to streamline current concerns.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have in-depth expertise and a user-friendly server interface. The team is well-rounded, quickly resolving even tangential issues such as billing problems.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They recently merged with another company, so they should focus on continuing to expand their services.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Respondent 1: I work as the director of infrastructure for a large private higher education institution’s central IT group. We run data centers and the university network.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ServerCentral Turing Group (SCTG)?

R1: We were on the hunt for a colocation facility to supplement our on-campus data centers.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

R1: We’re leasing data center space from ServerCentral. They’re also our internet service provider (ISP).

What is the team composition?

R1: We have an account manager and work with Jordan (CEO, ServerCentral), Eric (Director of Technology, ServerCentral), and Wayne (Technology Evangelist, ServerCentral). They put us in contact with other resources as needed.

How did you come to work with ServerCentral Turing Group (SCTG)?

R1: ServerCentral responded to our targeted RFP and immediately stood out. We walked through their facility and call center area, and met the techs who answered the phone. It felt very much like a smaller shop where we could build the individual relationships we wanted to maintain.

Respondent 2: ServerCentral’s proximity was convenient because it enabled us to hold in-person meetings for discussing challenges or whiteboarding infrastructure.  

How much have you invested with them?

R1: We spend over $500,000 per year.

What is the status of this engagement?

R1: We started working together in April 2012 and the partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

R1: They offer a continual uptime guarantee and deliver on their promises. Operationally, they follow their processes and keep their infrastructure up-and-running. We haven’t had too much in the way of service issues over there.

How did ServerCentral Turing Group (SCTG) perform from a project management standpoint?

R2: One of the things that are particularly special about ServerCentral is their involvement and support of the community at large. This doesn’t just benefit us, but also the community. They sponsor groups and events as a vendor.

What did you find most impressive about them?

R1: They’ve been careful and disciplined about how they grow—specifically what markets they enter and what services they offer. I think that, if their only concern was making money, they could’ve grown a lot more and faster, but they didn’t do that.

I know they’ve grown over time, but I think they’ve done it carefully, and I appreciate that. I’ve seen a bunch of other companies not do that. To their credit, that’s a hard piece of discipline to apply.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of infrastructure for Edovo, a company that provides telecommunications, education, and rehabilitative services via web delivery platforms to jails and prisons across the U.S.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ServerCentral Turing Group (SCTG)?

We were a small startup that originally needed a colocation partner. As our business grew, so did our needs, and SCTG has been able to fill those demands.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We initially started out with a single cabinet colocation at one of SCTG’s flagship facilities. As our business expanded, we began doing some cloud interconnection with them, including connecting to their managed services platforms where they provided things like VMware and other cloud and private cloud services directly. We also started using them for backbone transport and direct connect transport to other large cloud providers like AWS. Most recently, we’ve expanded those services into several other SCTG facilities across the country.

What is the team composition?

They have an account manager and solutions engineer.

How did you come to work with ServerCentral Turing Group?

They were a referral. They have a great managed services platform and offer a pay-as-you-grow billing option, which was a great fit for our company, so we chose them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in April 2013, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

I don’t know of any other shop that would’ve helped a startup like us grow in a colocation-based business as quickly as we have. They enabled us to have a presence in a flagship data center and helped us grow into the medium-to-large business that we are. In five years, we’ve had less than five minutes of total downtime.

How did ServerCentral Turing Group perform from a project management standpoint?

We've had a direct and personal connection with specific resources throughout our entire relationship, which has allowed us to maintain focus on our goals. Because we’ve worked with the same people for the whole engagement, they know exactly what we need. They’re responsive and have good documentation.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They give you the ability to buy large-scale services at the size you need. This allows any small business to play at the medium-to-large business size, enabling growth. I’ve never seen any other company be as good of a growth enabler as them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they continually seek to improve themselves.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the director for corporate IT for a digital marketing agency. We focus on customer acquisition for large corporate entities across a number of different verticals. I manage our help desk and end-user computing devices, as well as our network engineering, data center operations, and security programs.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ServerCentral?

Our previous hosting companies were less than optimal. We worked with global companies whose patchy response times and constant rotation of account managers slowed us down. We wanted a nimble company that could pay more attention to our account.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Principally, it’s a hosting arrangement. They provide the cabinets, rack space, power, and security. We manage our own servers, data, and operating systems, but they have the capacity to perform those services, too.

Our primary location with them is in the Chicago suburbs, and we have a disaster recovery location downtown. They run a high-speed data link between those sites to allow for replication to the disaster recovery location.

What is the team dynamic?

I have a variety of contacts across the company, but I usually work with a dedicated account rep. I’ve had three principal contacts since we opened the account, but also communicate with members of their data center operations group. I interface regularly with a couple of their data center managers, and we’ve coordinated moving servers between facilities with some other staffers.

How did you come to work with ServerCentral?

I don't remember how we originally found them, but they've suited our needs from the beginning.

How much have you invested with them?

As a rough estimate, we’ve spent around $120,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve worked with them in our disaster recovery location for about five or six years, and we moved into their suburban location around March 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Facility uptime is 100%. We have a lot of internal monitoring systems, and none of them have detected any problems.

When we moved from our other data center with another vendor, we realized late how many moving parts (literally and figuratively) were involved. My staff powered down at the old location on a Friday night, and asked them to manage the physical part of the move. It took them less than six hours to relocate all of our equipment and reconnect us.

Earlier in our contract, we were replicating data over a site-to-site VPN [Virtual Private Network], but it became too slow as the flow of data increased. We earmarked a budget for a dedicated line between the two facilities, and approached ServerCentral to see if they had a relationship with any standard telecommunications providers. They offered to handle the traffic themselves for one-third of the budget we approved.

How did ServerCentral perform from a project management standpoint?

They consistently provide better service and communication than any of our other hosting relationships. Our reasons for switching to them are still valid today, and they regularly exceed my expectations.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I've never had an issue with communication or billing with ServerCentral as I often have with other hosting services. We’ve developed personal relationships on multiple levels of the company, so if a problem ever arises and my dedicated rep is out of town, I can call a number of people for help. As I mentioned, I’ve had only three account reps with them, and I appreciate that kind of continuity.

I needed to collect a server we took out of operation a few weeks ago. I had trouble finding parking, so I called their operations center. The representative went to my cage, retrieved the server, and met me at their backdoor to save me time and trouble.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Recently, I had a meeting with them to discuss some services they’ve added, but I didn’t have any recommendations.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am an executive at MPAQ Automation Inc

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Control systems and business software for concrete producers in North America

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Summit, formerly Deft to accomplish?

• Eliminate a local server used by our previous accounting software
• Use our new accounting software from anywhere

SOLUTION

How did you find Summit, formerly Deft?

Referral

Why did you select Summit, formerly Deft over others?

Referred to me

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

We were switching from BusinessVision hosted in our own local server to QuickBooks Enterprise.

Our decision to use a cloud server resulted in a better overall solution.

The perceived speed is slower, but the ability for some users to work from home is something that we really needed  

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

1. Our QuickBooks accounting works well, albeit slower than expected,
2. We don't need to update or back up the server
3. Service is always available.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

On time.

What was your primary form of communication with Summit, formerly Deft?

Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

We thought Summit was a good solution because it was the one used by our QuickBooks vendor, so we went along with that.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Summit, formerly Deft could have done differently?

• Faster server and more memory would be nice. 
• Ability to install other programs in the server, like Excel, instead of paying for a subscription.
• Live support by phone, not just by email.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Sr. Data Scientist of a consulting company 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

IT services and consulting - AI strategy, cybersecurity and focus on developing end applications that enable success across multiple verticals and clients.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address?
Summit HQ has been instrumental in hosting on the cloud, DBaaS, cybersecurity and helped look through a section of narrow use cases for us.

SOLUTION

How did you find Deft?

• Online Search

Why did you select Deft over others?

• Referred to me

What was the scope of their involvement and team dynamic?
Discussing VM rightsizing, capacity planning, EDR/XDR, and how to focus on something where AI can be brought into the mix.

What's the status of this engagement?

 Well discussed and ongoing. Highly recommended.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How did your relationship with your partner evolve?
More small niche use cases brought in for discussion and seeking their assistance. Also other scale projects scoped and discused.

In what ways can they improve?

I would say they are very responsive and helpful. No negatives.

What advice do you have for clients with similar needs to yours?

Work with them and they have the SME's for your assistance. They are there to help.

UPDATED REVIEW

This review was published on December 29, 2023.

Senior Data Scientist, IT Consulting CoIT Services

Los Angeles, California

10,000+

Nov 2023 - Ongoing

$200,000 to $999,999

Verified

Project summary
An IT consulting company has hired Deft for IT services. The team helps the client with technical capabilities evaluations to find strategic initiatives to enhance their IT infrastructure.

Feedback summary
Deft does a great job getting work done through a communicative approach via virtual meetings and email. Deft is transparent throughout the process to ensure that everyone is aware of the project's status.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Sr. Data Scientist of a consulting company 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

IT Services and Consulting

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Deft to accomplish?

• IT Needs

SOLUTION

How did you find Deft?

• Online Search

Why did you select Deft over others?

• Referred to me

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

They helped very well in terms of IT evaluation on our technical capability and in finding something that would work well with strategic initiatives. They looked at P&L and financial statements also

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

They have great communication and in getting work through

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

They would line it well with showcasing what they have and then keeping everyone in the loop

What was your primary form of communication with Deft?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Communication

Are there any areas for improvement or something Deft could have done differently?

None

Overall rating:    5.0

Quality:    5.0

Cost:    5.0

Schedule:    5.0

Willing to refer: 5.0

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a solution provider in the information technology industry. My role involves overseeing our operations and ensuring we deliver effective IT solutions to our clients.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Summit, formerly Deft to accomplish?

We wanted to offload the hardware aspects of running our own colocation so that we could focus more on the software side of our business.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They set up a VMware cloud environment for us, allowing us to deploy virtual machines and scale as needed. They also manage the ongoing hardware side of the operation.

How did you come to work with Summit, formerly Deft?

I connected with them through networking with other technology professionals. Their proximity to our location and their pricing, which fit our budget, were key factors in our decision.

What is the status of this engagement?

The engagement began in February 2014 and is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

By having them manage the hardware, we were able to reallocate our resources and become more profitable. This allowed us to focus our time and management efforts on customer acquisition and expanding our services, rather than being tied up with hardware and networking tasks.

How did Summit, formerly Deft perform from a project management standpoint?

They deliver timely items. We communicate via virtual meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have a large team that can be allocated to your project, regardless of its size, which is a significant advantage.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there aren't any

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the VP, AI and Digital Transformation Operations of Ntiva, Inc

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are a technology consulting firm and Digital Transformation firm.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Deft, a Summit company to accomplish?

• Data center services

SOLUTION

How did you find Deft, a Summit company?

Online Search

Why did you select Deft, a Summit company over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from Deft, a Summit company were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

We contracted with Deft years ago for them to provide a secure vCloud environment to host a suite of applications that are mission critical and require the utmost security.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

99% uptime

Great backup service

Proactive support

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

They always deliver on time and always respond quickly to our needs. Our account managers and engineers assigned to our contract have always been excellent.

What was your primary form of communication with Deft, a Summit company?

• In-Person Meeting
• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Their account management team is always super-responsive. They took care of all of our needs.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Deft, a Summit company could have done differently?

I cannot think of anything I'd ask them to change.