Involta Helps Clients Usher in the Future of Work

As CEO of IT service provider Involta, Bruce Lehrman is planning for a future that looks very different from what many people imagined just a year ago. “The days of organizations requiring employees to work in the office are gone for a long time—in many cases, even permanently,” he says.

Earlier this year, Lehrman sent nearly all of the company’s employees to work from home except for a few essential workers needed to keep data centers running. It was a smooth transition thanks to a strong remote-work policy the company already had in place.

The more urgent challenge for Involta was to help its clients adjust. “We’ve always been focused on helping clients do what’s right for them,” says Lehrman. “Now more than ever, they’re looking to us as a valued partner.”

That means rapidly standing up new network requirements, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), and VPN connections while mobilizing data to reach remote workforces—and keeping it secure. Not to mention, Involta needs to keep systems running with only a skeleton crew. One big factor in accomplishing all this has been Involta’s investment in Pure Storage®.

Companies are realizing it’s not ideal to keep IT workloads within their own four walls.Bruce Lehrman, CEO of Involta

Involta Chief Innovation Officer Michelle Bates explains, “One of the reasons we’ve partnered with Pure is to gain the speed and flexibility to respond to our clients’ needs. What we’re doing is taking the friction out of technology, so their businesses run better.”

For the past few years, Involta has been standardizing its U.S. data centers on Pure with FlashArray™. Nearly every client has workloads on Pure, which means they get performance-optimized storage for all their critical applications. Involta has begun using FlashArray//C to roll out capacity-optimized storage to clients with workloads that don’t require the ultra-low latency of FlashArray//X.

Standardizing on Pure has made a big difference in performance and reliability for clients while dramatically simplifying storage management for Involta. In fact, just two people manage the entire environment of more than 80 arrays.

That performance and simplicity have allowed Involta to support clients—many of them with essential workers—during this challenging time.

Healthcare Gets a Prescription for Transformation

The healthcare industry is an important vertical for Involta, representing about 40% of its business. In many ways, it has been one of the industries most impacted by the current environment, requiring a shift in thinking at many organizations.

Involta has helped many healthcare clients manage recent transformation projects with the help of Pure Storage. “Our clients continue to share appreciation for our rapid response and ability to deliver,” Lehrman says. “Even better, their respective teams are receiving accolades internally for making smart investments in a world-class infrastructure, which has allowed them to transform themselves and the way they operate.”

As the current environment transforms the healthcare industry, Involta expects a rapid increase in the adoption of telemedicine. “The resistance to telemedicine is disappearing, and we’re seeing telemedicine providers onboard doctors at an incredible pace,” says Lehrman. “We’re really focused on helping these companies scale up to meet demand.”

Involta Prepares for What’s Next

In the past few months, Lehrman has seen a new mindset emerge, especially among small- and medium-sized businesses. “Companies are realizing it’s not ideal to keep IT workloads within their own four walls, especially when no one is in the building,” he says. “We’re having more conversations where organizations are wondering why they’re still in the IT business at all.”

That spells opportunity for Involta. With Pure Storage, the IT service provider doesn’t have to worry about storage, knowing it can size and scale its resources as needed, without much administrative work. The company sees Pure as a crucial strategic partner, creating a strong advantage as Involta prepares itself—and its clients—for the future of work.