As the largest telecommunications company in the nation’s largest state, GCI Communications Corp. faces some unusual challenges serving Alaska’s diverse population.
There are the geographic challenges: Rugged, mountainous terrain; extreme, sub-zero weather; island communities; and vast distances between towns and villages. Then there are the bears: Black bears, brown bears, polar bears—posing a challenge to maintaining GCI’s infrastructure. There’s a reason why they call it “The Last Frontier.”
Obviously, it’s no easy feat to provide reliable and efficient services such as high-speed internet, mobile telephony, and telemedicine across the mountains, islands, forests and tundra of Alaska. But GCI has made significant strides doing just that over the past four decades.
What’s made it much easier is GCI’s embrace of cutting-edge technology solutions from Broadcom, including VMware Cloud Foundation, VMware Tanzu Data Services, and vDefend Distributed Firewall and Security Intelligence.
Overcoming Geography Challenges
Alaska’s extreme geography affects everything from latency to maintenance. With global hyperscalers located thousands of miles away, the company experiences significant latency. Harsh weather complicates the maintenance of its network infrastructure.
To mitigate some of these challenges and comply with regulations, GCI was moved to house its data in its own data centers. But its on-premises database-management solution lacked the features of public cloud databases services.
To modernize its IT infrastructure and streamline operations, the company turned to Broadcom’s VMware solutions to simplify processes and improve developer productivity.
Simplifying Operations with VMware Cloud Foundation
GCI had faced significant hurdles in managing its IT infrastructure. Its database services were manually deployed, with each database customized to a specific application. Developers were frustrated by the complexity and delays in provisioning resources, said Roger Joys, GCI’s vice president of Enterprise Cloud Platform.
Looking for a more streamlined solution, GCI adopted VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), a comprehensive platform that provides unified management across compute, storage and networking resources.
VCF supported the company as it scaled its footprint from 450 virtual machines in 2020 to 4,500 VMs today. When the company needed to deploy hundreds of virtual desktops for its call center, the IT team was able to respond quickly with an integrated solution secured by policy automations using VMware vDefend Distributed Firewall and VMware Security Intelligence.
“With Security Intelligence for vDefend, we were able to streamline connections from our network to host and destinations, so we can know what’s going on within those sources and plan accordingly,” says Talon Keitt, cloud platform solutions architect, GCI.
Leveraging VCF, GCI was able to automate many of its processes, scale resources more efficiently, and reduce provisioning lead times significantly. As a result, the company saw improved operational efficiency. It was able to respond faster to the needs of its business teams.
“By using VMware Cloud Foundation, we were able to deploy our new data center in a matter of months,” said Jeremy Mayfield, GCI’s senior solutions architect. “With automation we’re deploying applications, services and monitoring capabilities faster.”
Leveraging VMware Tanzu for Self-Service Database Management
With VCF in place, GCI took the next step in simplifying its infrastructure by adopting Tanzu Data Services. The solution enables the company to offer database-as-a-service to its internal developers, giving them the ability to provision and manage databases quickly, without needing to worry about the underlying infrastructure.
While this boosted developer productivity, it also helped the company combine its database offerings into a more centralized, standardized platform. By reducing database sprawl, GCI was able to improve its internal support operations and reduce the time spent on vendor management and database maintenance.
The self-service, cloud-like capabilities of Tanzu Data Services also meant that developers could deploy databases in a matter of minutes, greatly accelerating time-to-market for new services and features.
Broadcom’s Role in Supporting GCI’s Growth
Joys emphasized how the integration of VMware solutions under the Broadcom umbrella has been pivotal in providing a seamless, high-quality support experience. GCI works with a single point of contact for all issues related to VCF and Tanzu. This eliminates the challenges of dealing with multiple vendors, ensures faster issue resolution and minimizes downtime.
Broadcom’s integrated vendor approach also ensures that GCI’s private cloud infrastructure—encompassing compute, storage, networking, and database resources—is supported in a way that improves performance and reduces maintenance overhead. This holistic support model has contributed to better business outcomes and enhanced operational efficiency and security.
Bridging the Digital Divide in Alaska
Thanks to its investments in Broadcom’s VMware solutions, GCI has continued to bridge the digital divide in Alaska, providing essential services to some of the most remote areas of the state. With the help of VCF, GCI scaled its infrastructure to more than 4,500 virtual machines today, up from 450 in 2020. This scalability has been crucial to meet the demands of Alaska’s growing digital landscape, including the expansion of services, such as telehealth and remote education.
GCI’s private cloud platform also allows the company to provide services at prices that remain competitive and accessible to Alaskans. Automated patching cycles have been reduced from months to just days, further enhancing the company’s ability to scale rapidly and manage costs effectively.
Looking to the Future with Private AI
As GCI continues to modernize its IT infrastructure, Joys sees a growing opportunity to use private AI within the company’s private cloud environment. With privacy and data protection becoming increasingly important in today’s digital landscape, GCI’s private cloud enables it to explore AI solutions that prioritize security while providing the flexibility to innovate.
Broadcom’s strategic alignment with GCI’s vision for a private cloud has enabled the company to stay ahead of the curve in the rapidly evolving telecommunications landscape.
“VMware solutions have been instrumental in enhancing connectivity offerings for Alaskan businesses and residents,” Joys said.
He also sees opportunities to use GCI’s private cloud environment to develop private AI capabilities. “Private AI solves many of the concerns about security and data protection that exist with public AI offerings,” he said.
By embracing cloud technologies like VMware Cloud Foundation, VMware vDefend, and VMware Tanzu, GCI has streamlined its operations, reduced complexity, and delivered high-quality, cost-effective services to residents and businesses throughout the state.
GCI, a subsidiary of Liberty Broadband Corp., continues to utilize these innovations to push the boundaries of what’s possible in Alaska, further bridging the digital divide and empowering Alaskans with access to new opportunities.
Based in Palo Alto, Calif., Broadcom is a global infrastructure technology leader built on more than 60 years of innovation, collaboration and engineering excellence. With roots based in the rich technical heritage of AT&T/Bell Labs, Lucent and Hewlett-Packard/Agilent, Broadcom focuses on technologies that connect our world. For more information on Broadcom, click here.