At first glance, a co-managed database solution may seem fairly simple. TELUS provides space for a server, together with guaranteed connectivity, a high level of security and a fail-safe power supply, while the customer manages their own applications. But when the Calgary-based Mineral Products Division of Dynatec came looking for a co-management partner, they wanted anything but a "one size fits all" solution.

The Mineral Products Division of Dynatec
With mining and processing facilities in North America and southeast Asia, the Mineral Products Division of Dynatec markets barite, silica, gypsum, talc, dolomite and zeolite products around the world. This wide range of products has an even wider range of applications, resulting in this division of Dynatec dealing with many different customers, in a number of different industries.

In order to make timely and effective decisions, the management team at the Dynatec Mineral Products Division needs to know as much as possible about every customer. It also needs to know the status of every order in the queue.

Until recently, this information - when it was shared at all - was e-mailed to head office from the various operating divisions, a time-consuming and inefficient process. There was simply too great a time lag between the information arriving and management being able to analyze and act upon it.

Sharing information in real time
To solve its information-sharing problems, the Mineral Products Division of Dynatec contracted a third-party supplier to design a company-wide customer database. Upon completion, this database will give management instantaneous access to a real-time picture of the state of the company's business, whenever required.

However, from the very beginning, the divisional management team did not want to distract the company's scarce internal IT resources from focusing on the business. So, rather than ask them to manage the hardware and connectivity required by the new database, they began looking for a co-managed hosting solution.

"We're a small shop and we don't have many information technology people available to us," says Alan Minty, Director of Marketing and Business Development for the Mineral Products Division of Dynatec. "But our new database is mission-critical. We have a lot of concerns about security, back-ups and integrity. And when there's a problem, I don't want to leave a voicemail. I don't want to send a fax. I want to talk to a person."

After meeting with a TELUS Account Executive, Minty quickly realized that one of the TELUS intelligent Internet Data Centres could provide the security, redundancies and back-up that the Mineral Products Division of Dynatec needed. TELUS tailored a co-managed solution, providing space, guaranteed connectivity and availability, round-the-clock monitoring, and an uninterrupted power supply.

"We didn't get everything right at the first meeting," he says. "But our TELUS Account Executive was able to bring the resources we needed to the table, when we needed them. Once we started working together, TELUS appointed an implementation manager who is a real go-to person. She is our source contact and she figures out who to contact when something needs to be done. Then she makes it happen."

The Mineral Products Division of Dynatec is currently in the final phase of implementing the new database. User trials are helping them to refine the tools and ensure that they make users' jobs easier, while the company is simultaneously teaching its people how to use the system. Minty is very satisfied. "It was refreshing to have a service provider that, instead of selling us a pre-packaged solution, was interested enough in the problems we had to solve to bring the resources we needed to the table."