Leading Caribbean Food Distributor Selects Virtustream Enterprise Cloud To Host And Manage SAP Workloads; Improves Scalability, Security And Disaster Recovery Posture

Move to Virtustream’s Cloud Services Simplifies IT Management and Fortifies IT from Severe Weather Risks and Hurricane Season with Robust Disaster Recovery Capabilities

Virtustream, an enterprise-class cloud company and Dell Technologies business, announced that GraceKennedy (GK) Foods selected Virtustream Enterprise Cloud to power its growing business’ SAP workloads. The move transforms GraceKennedy Foods’ IT systems for seamless, fast growth in the future and massively improves its disaster recovery (DR) capabilities. This was critical to GK Foods’ cloud selection process, due to the level of exposure the company’s Caribbean-based operations have to severe weather risks, including hurricanes and tropical storms.

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“Moving to Virtustream Enterprise Cloud and xStreamCare Services™ added the controls, scalability, security and resiliency that our organization requires every day to support our business success and growth plans,” says Deidre Cousins, Chief Information Officer of GraceKennedy Limited which provides IT oversight for GK Foods. “Virtustream’s integrated security and disaster recovery services, combined with its SAP expertise and high-touch support model, made our move an easy decision.”

“Customers like GK Foods value the enterprise-class benefits of our cloud platform and one-hand-to-shake approach,” says Drew Fassett, SVP and head of global sales at Virtustream. “Combined with more than a decade of experience managing mission-critical SAP applications through our personalized support and services, our comprehensive cloud offerings simplify and accelerate IT transformation.”

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Enterprise-class Benefits with Customer-tailored Support and Managed Services

With its move to Virtustream Enterprise Cloud, GK receives white-glove care through Virtustream’s xStreamCare Services, including managed services covering installation, upgrades, patch management and security support, from the applications through the VMs, operating system and database layers. The customer benefits from the service level agreements for all systems, spanning both production and non-production, with committed incident response times as quick as 20 minutes. The new partnership also future-proofs GK’s business for growth with a scale-up architecture that requires no future infrastructure purchases and makes budget forecasting more predictable as an operating expenditure versus a capital expenditure model.

One of the most important new benefits to GK is the integrated disaster recovery (DR) services and support, with DR testing that can be conducted at GraceKennedy’s convenience. With systems now dispersed to different datacenters in the United States, GK will also enjoy a more resilient storage and backup model; and with newly integrated enterprise-class security services, GK can take advantage of encryption at rest, in use and in motion, as well as active monitoring, regulatory support and geographic compliance assurance.

GraceKennedy Foods Set for IT Transformational Journey to SAP S4/HANA® as it Continues on Path of Business Expansion and Growth

With its SAP ECC workloads now safely hosted on the Virtustream Enterprise Cloud platform, GK is positioned to undertake its SAP S4/HANA modernization plans. Accomplishing this strategic transformation will be more manageable now that the company can leverage the best practices and experienced skill sets of Virtustream’s xStreamCare Services, in combination with enterprise-class replicated data center infrastructure. Virtustream’s approach will allow the organization to avoid both the capital expenses and the investments necessary to augment their own IT staff’s skill sets, as is typically required for the modernization and management of S4/HANA.

GK Foods is a division of the GraceKennedy Group, which is one of the largest and most dynamic corporate entities in Jamaica and the Caribbean with a network of 50 subsidiaries and associated companies operating in the areas of food trading and financial services. With its mission to deliver the taste and experience of Jamaican and other multi-cultural foods to the world and leading financial services to the Caribbean region, since 1922 GK has consistently grown and expanded its operations which now span Jamaica, several other Caribbean islands, North and Central America, the United Kingdom and several European countries.

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