When we think of the Liberty Bell, what comes to mind first for most of us, is the infamous crack, (funny how we think of the failures first, huh?). How we begin often has a direct effect on how we end.
Tradition tells of a chime that changed the world on July 8, 1776, with the Liberty Bell ringing out from the tower of Independence Hall summoning the citizens of Philadelphia to hear the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence by Colonel John Nixon.
Earlier that week, in the late afternoon of July 4th, the Declaration of Independence was officially adopted.
Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly Isaac Norris first ordered a bell for the bell tower in 1751 from the Whitechapel Foundry in London. This company was known for casting Big Ben, and is listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as Great Britain’s oldest manufacturing company. Though, it didn’t seem to matter how prestigious or famous this company was when it dropped the ball on the bell, casting it with metals too brittle to last.
The crack and the mystery of how it happened.
Chalk up the Philly landmark’s famous blemish to faulty building materials from across the pond.
When the bell arrived in Philadelphia in 1752, it cracked on its first test strike. Two local craftsmen, John Pass and John Stow, twice cast a new bell using metal from the cracked English bell. Then later, others tried to prevent further damage by boring out hairline cracks on the bell, to keep them from expanding dangerously.
Oddly enough, there’s no one widely accepted story for how the recast bell got its now-famous crack. Fast forward to almost a century later and the Philadelphia Public Ledger chronicled the bell’s final peal in a Feb. 26, 1846, story:
“The old Independence Bell rang its last clear note on Monday last in honor of the birthday of Washington and now hangs in the great city steeple irreparably cracked and dumb. It had been cracked before but was set in order of that day by having the edges of the fracture filed so as not to vibrate against each other…It gave out clear notes and loudly, and appeared to be in excellent condition until noon when it received a sort of compound fracture in a zig-zag direction through one of its sides which put it completely out of tune and left it a mere wreck of what it was.”
The Craftsmen did everything they could to revive the bell, and in the end, unintentionally made things worse. The Liberty Bell moved from a signal to a symbol, and even though its main function has been moved to the back seat, it still holds a place in America’s heart.
The BIG question.
What would have happened if it was created properly the first time? What costs could have been avoided? What losses might have been wins instead?
How we start a journey is almost as important as how we finish.
River Point Technology (RPT) is a key component to a successful start. One of our clients, a Global 500 life sciences company, with more than 117,000+ employees worldwide, might not have lost as much as they did – if they started their journey with RPT.
Our client was struggling with speed to market, the overwhelming burdens of operational overhead, and their multi-tenant service offerings. Moreover, they were experiencing challenges in providing solutions to the 500+ tenants that needed to be supported on a consistent platform.
This company quickly developed a significant 7-figure monthly spend in AWS. Which totaled nearly $1M in direct and indirect costs all related to AWS. Eventually, they noticed this was an increase from the average $750,000 monthly spend in their AWS consumption.
It didn’t matter what they seemed to do on their own, expenses continued to rise as productivity and revenue stayed the same.
Time to do it right.
Call RPT to the rescue!
RPT was engaged to help our client reduce their AWS cost in a variety of ways.
- Removing snapshots older than 180 days- this resulted in a monthly savings estimated around $36,000.
- RPT Engineers worked directly with the customer in identifying unattached EBS volumes and deleting them which resulted in the business saving an additional $4000.
- RPT Consultants worked with the client to provide an executive cost management guidance to tailor a customized Savings Plan and Reserved Instance purchased. This action resulted in an average monthly savings of another $66,000.
- RPT worked with our client to utilize a more hands-on approach/style to align the infrastructure resources to their actual needs which led to improved performance and optimization.
- RPT consultants and engineers continually assess our client’s infrastructure utilization and recurring expenses which continues to significantly decrease in their overhead cost even as the company migrated and continued expansion into the cloud.
RPT helped our client achieve MONTHLY savings of approximately $100,000.
The craftsmen of the 1800s learned a valuable lesson over and over again. Continuing to do what you have already done, in the way you have always done it, will end up the same way it always has: cracks that keep splitting.
We recognize there’s no “one-size-fits-all” scenario and RPT goes beyond packaged offerings to provide clients with a truly customized solution.
Setting up success means the right materials, the right people, and the right processes all working towards the same goal. River Point Technology understands each client and coordinates our suite of solutions to help achieve their goals. In the case of our client, we got called in late, but it’s never too late for the right solution. And at least their challenges didn’t become a national symbol!
These results are not guaranteed as each client brings a unique situation to the table.