AeC Enhances Customer Relations with Azure and AMD EPYC™ Server CPUs

AeC Enhances Customer Relations with Azure and AMD EPYC™ Server CPUs

Brazil's AeC switched its customer relations Azure VDI to AMD EPYC Server CPUs, cutting costs by 30% and boosting performance for its large remote workforce

Customer relations management requires lots of human interaction but has been greatly enhanced by technology over the last decade. Employees need the best possible computing resources to keep track of interactions, and the shift to remote work has brought a new set of requirements in recent years. Brazil’s largest customer relations company AeC found that switching to Microsoft Azure virtual machines (VMs) powered by AMD EPYC™ Server CPUs provided performance and cost savings to help the company grow.

“AeC has been the biggest customer services company in Brazil for over 35 years,” says Gustavo A W Teixeira, Chief Information Officer, AeC. “We have more than 55,000 employees in 22 different locations. We have over 40,000 computers connected to our environment, and 18,000 employees working from home to support our ecosystem.”

Providing a uniform, secure service to this many employees, across both office and remote locations, necessitates a careful choice of technology partner. “The biggest challenges are around the performance, stability, and security of our environment,” says Evandro Thales Cangussu Rodrigues, Technology Executive, AeC. “We have many clients using our infrastructure. We provide services for companies related to water, energy, finance, and health. We must make sure that we provide stability for our clients. Our clients are the biggest companies in Brazil, as well as some multinational companies.”

Uniform services for remote workers

“We need to have good performance at a competitive price, because the call center business is a very competitive one here in Brazil,” adds Rodrigues. AeC’s commitment to its 18,000 work-from-home employees is the most demanding challenge, particularly as the company expects this number to increase. “You must make sure that those working from home have the same efficiency, quality, and security as those that are working in the office,” says Teixeira. “They have the same technological requirements.”

AeC employs a typical suite of Microsoft Windows-based software, plus both cloud-based applications and client-company applications. “We have more than 100 clients, who have their own applications, so we have a huge range of software running on our infrastructure,” says Rodrigues. During the pandemic, companies were looking for ways to continue business. “We had to close in-person operations and enable our employees to work from home.”

Cloud services were the perfect solution, but rolling these out efficiently across thousands of employees requires optimal performance and cost effectiveness. “We deploy big public cloud partners at global levels such as Microsoft to help us deliver stability in our environment,” says Teixeira. Microsoft Azure has become crucial for AeC to offer a uniform experience across all its diverse needs. “We use the Azure cloud for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) for those working from home. These resources inside the Azure cloud are named AVD, Azure Virtual Desktop. We're using this specific workload to improve the services AeC provides.”

AMD EPYC Server CPUs deliver large cost savings

AeC knew Microsoft Azure VMs powered by AMD EPYC Server CPUs were available but hadn’t made the transition until AeC team members attended an AMD event in Austin that demonstrated how AMD EPYC Server CPUs were rapidly evolving. “Due to the high technical capacity AMD has shown, and the market share, we had the confidence to go for EPYC processors,” says Rodrigues.

“We gained approval to use AMD technology in our environment and migrated from Intel Scalable 3^rd Gen to 3^rd and 4^th Gen AMD EPYC CPUs,” says Teixeira. What really convinced AeC was the performance gain and price savings available from AMD. “Using the AMD platform gave us 30 percent cost reduction in our services versus Intel. This technological evolution of AMD in recent years made us feel secure enough to migrate our workloads over.”

Before deployment, AeC checked that the new Microsoft Azure VMs would meet its needs. “We did stability tests with AMD CPUs using the same applications as our clients,” says Teixeira. AeC also referred to Passmark Software’s test results to ensure performance met the company’s demands. Since the upgrade, Teixeira says, “there is a perception from clients that our infrastructure is faster than it was before.”

“At AeC, we always choose the best suppliers of hardware, software, and equipment,” says Rodrigues. “AMD EPYC CPUs surpassed the performance and cost levels of other processors.”

Migration was completely transparent for clients too. “This process was orchestrated by Microsoft,” says Teixeira. “We just had to choose which CPU manufacturer we were going to migrate to, and Microsoft transferred all the back-end processes. It was very seamless and easy.”

Switching to Microsoft Azure VMs powered by AMD EPYC Server CPUs has greatly benefited AeC. “We got stability, lower costs, and more speed,” says Rodrigues. The 30 percent cost reduction has also helped greatly at a difficult time for Brazilian businesses. “Those savings have come at a moment when the macroeconomic scenario in Brazil is going through a very tough period. This extra money gave the company room to grow. Today, 40 percent of our revenue uses cloud technology.”

Growing business with AMD

AeC now has a massive fleet in the Azure Cloud. “We have 15,000 AMD EPYC vCPU cores with Microsoft,” says Teixeira. “Clients find these very reliable and they're extremely happy with the increase in performance they are getting. Now, 100 percent of our VDI workloads run on AMD EPYC processors.”

These excellent results mean AeC plans to stick with AMD for the foreseeable future, with an upgrade to 5^th Gen AMD EPYC Server CPUs on the horizon. “We trust AMD for the long run, as we grow our VDI platform,” says Teixeira. “When we have to expand, we intend to continue using AMD processors.”

This will particularly aid AeC’s plans to maximize its support for working remotely. “The guidelines of the company today are to have the most employees working from home, and the more people we have working from home, the more instances powered by AMD we need,” says Rodrigues. “AMD has become our major partner for working from home. Whatever growth we have, AMD will be there with us.”

AeC believes every business could benefit from the switch to AMD EPYC Server CPUs, as it has. “Companies can absolutely trust AMD,” says Teixeira. “AMD processors have better stability, better performance, and at a better cost versus the competition. All organizations can adopt those new processors to increase their technological efficiency.”

“We have used AMD processors here for over six months, and we just can’t say enough good things about the results,” concludes Rodrigues. “AMD has contributed to our company in a very meaningful way.”