Aztec Systems, Inc: Clients

Featured Case Study

Spectrum Athletic Clubs is the 8th leading fitness company in the U.S. with more than 125,000 members. It primarily operates locations in Southern California and San Antonio, Texas. Spectrum offers spacious, modern facilities, highly trained staff, and the latest in fitness equipment, sports and fitness programs, and quality amenities.

For over 25 years, Spectrum has catered to health-conscious consumers who demand first-class facilities and excellent customer service. The Spectrum staff is committed to treating clients like family members while helping them achieve goals for fitness, health, and improved lifestyle.

The Business Challenge

Spectrum recognized that its best use of time should be devoted to managing the club facilities and looking after its membership — not in troubleshooting and managing the company's technology challenges. Therefore, in the fall of 1999, Spectrum came to Aztec Systems seeking a highly managed solution capable of providing a range of users across several U.S. locations with access to a variety of critical applications and services. The desired solution needed to be designed to accommodate existing multiple locations, current application needs and user base, plus be sufficiently scalable to expand as the company made aggressive future acquisitions. Spectrum also requested that Aztec take on the on-premise hardware and software needs for all of its locations which allowed the Spectrum staff to remain focused on providing superior service to club members.

Aztec's Solution

Utilizing Microsoft Windows Terminal Server and Citrix MetaFrame in a load-balanced computing cluster, Aztec Systems met all application and services requirements including Microsoft Great Plains™ (currently called Microsoft Dynamics™ GP) and CheckFree for membership processing. Infrastructure centralization was accomplished by deploying a high-availability server farm in Aztec's secure Managed Services Center (MSC) located in the Dallas INFOMART®.

"Since 1999, Aztec has been there every step of the way as we acquired new clubs and needed to install hardware," explained Greg Johnson, Spectrum's Director of IT. "Aztec gave us a scalable, cost-effective solution with services at the Managed Service Center and top-notch support engineers who take care of upgrades, administration, and reactive support."

Benefits

Centralized and Secure

Aztec's innovative solution allowed Spectrum to centralize computing resources in a secure, state-of-the-art facility. Aztec continues to provide daily technical support and management as needed. By introducing reliable support, Spectrum was better positioned to manage support costs and to project its budgets for technology. Since inception, the Spectrum managed solution has averaged 99.999% system-wide uptime and availability annually.

Competitive Advantage

Recognizing the need for a reliable partner who could provide necessary IT structure and support to operations, Spectrum has leveraged its own forethought coupled with a strong alliance with Aztec to become a leader in the health and fitness industry. With Aztec Systems, Spectrum achieved greater operational efficiencies enabling them to quickly acquire new facilities, remove the old technology, and implement their own IT hardware and software — with far greater speed than their competitors. "The managed solution we deployed with Aztec has allowed us to increase our rate of club acquisitions," said Mr. Johnson. "In some cases, we can transition in one day. Plus — we've lowered our IT costs." Over the last seven years, Spectrum has experienced explosive growth and has relied on Aztec Systems to deliver reliable service, support, and business development solutions.

"Aztec always provides experienced technicians who are able to quickly diagnose and solve problems rather than spend a substantial amount of time guessing like used car repairmen at how to fix something."

— J. Brad Donnell, Senior Director, Metropolitan Capital Advisor, Inc.