A fast, secure and reliable infrastructure.

Paragon helps its customers with more efficient work processes and an improved customer experience. Paragon delivers business and communication solutions around data, consultancy, creative design and technology with successful implementation and execution. With a team of around 500 people spread across 8 locations in Belgium and the Netherlands, they are committed every day to achieving maximum results for more than 1,200 customers. With their integrated customer communication solutions - including print, digital and omnichannel services - they help companies communicate more effectively with their customers. Nice detail: every Dutch citizen receives at least one mail piece/message a year from them. This year, for instance, Paragon printed no less than 7 million ballot papers for the European Parliament election campaign.

Flexibility, scalability, reliability and performance

Paragon has been a satisfied Previder customer since 2020 and closely involved in the digital transformation of many companies. At their impressive production site in Berkel en Rodenrijs, we talked to Victor Meere, Director Business ICT at Paragon.

Victor underlines their choice for and the essential importance of Previder in their entire business process: "Paragon is a spider in the web in the digital transformation of many companies. With these transformations, there is an increasing need for ICT capacity, infrastructure and cybersecurity. And with that challenge in mind, we also need that kind of service. We need flexibility; sometimes we need more capacity than other times, and we want to be able to scale up and down ourselves. Infrastructure capacity used to be fixed and owned. As a result, flexibility and scalability was basically zero. We needed a scalable solution, where we can host our applications and our infrastructure on modern equipment."

100% Dutch data centres

Besides a flexible and scalable solution, security was also very important for Paragon's choice of Previder. "We serve many customers in the Netherlands and send at least one mail item/message per year to every Dutch citizen. Because we obviously need to handle these customers' data securely, cybersecurity is very important. Everything has to be very well protected and secured against data leaks and theft. That is why we need infrastructure that is safe and well protected and where data is stored on Dutch territory," Victor said.

A challenge for which Previder's Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is the perfect solution. Peter Bult, Lead Consultant at Previder, explains: "First, we discussed the challenges with Paragon. It emerged that Paragon was looking for a new server environment. This had to do with reliability, scalability and performance. Previder IaaS proved to be a good match for this, because within this environment Paragon can spin and sizen servers itself, depending on the need at the time. It is a fast, flexible and extremely reliable platform. We built the platform with managed firewalls that are partly managed by us. If necessary, the customer can also make adjustments themselves if there is a need to act quickly. These firewalls shield the environment from the internet and can also be used to connect to suppliers using VPN. With Previder IaaS, we offer a platform based on newer hardware. Performance shot up with this."

Tight and very well-directed onboarding process

Transferring data and existing systems to a data centre requires careful planning and execution. Minimising downtime and ensuring data consistency are two key factors. According to Victor, the migration went smoothly: "A data centre migration like this is quite a complicated story. Because everything on old servers has to be transferred to new servers. We used the lift-and-shift methodology for this, to finally migrate the servers to Previder's environment. We then set to work upgrading several systems where this was required. Finally, we hardened the servers so that we could finally comply with the “security by design” principle. The onboarding process went very well and was tightly directed. It was a defined project in which we made great use of Previder's knowledge and experience. We were able to use our own expertise to properly implement the applications we ultimately manage ourselves. It was all carried out exactly as planned, on time and correctly."

‘Our collaboration has allowed us to make serious cost savings!’

"The collaboration with Previder was very natural and pleasant. I think the culture and the way Previder works fits well with how we like things. They understand exactly how we want things and where our needs lie, such as flexibility and independence. For example, we are able to manage our server farm ourselves and make changes when necessary. And we can do that without needing anyone from Previder.

Working with Previder has enabled us to make serious cost savings. Our applications are installed on modern infrastructure and the data is hosted on Dutch soil. And ultimately, it has allowed us as an organisation to flexibly scale the infrastructure and make configuration changes independently.

Previder's services make us independent and efficient. As a result, we can offer our customers faster, easier and tailored services!"