At the time of implementation, the City of Mont Belvieu had invested in the exact amount of compute and storage capacity needed for their operations. Blue Iron Technologies, in partnership with Zadara, delivered a consumption-based model that enabled the city to pay only for the resources they were actively using—eliminating the need for upfront overprovisioning.

During the CrowdStrike outage, this model proved invaluable. As the city required additional compute and storage capacity to recover and stabilize critical infrastructure, the existing solution allowed for rapid scaling without the delays or costs associated with procuring and deploying physical hardware.

Key Benefits Realized:

• On-demand expansion: Resource limits were increased within hours, not days or weeks.
• No shipping delays: Additional capacity was provisioned virtually—no new gear needed.
• Cost efficiency: The city continued to pay based on actual utilization, avoiding overspend on idle infrastructure.
• Modern architecture advantage: This kind of elastic scalability is not typically achievable with traditional hardware-centric solutions.

This event underscored the strategic value of leveraging a flexible, cloud-based infrastructure approach, ensuring municipalities like Mont Belvieu can adapt rapidly in the face of unforeseen challenges.

Cost Control & Support Coverage

One of the most valuable aspects of the City of Mont Belvieu’s experience was the ability to manage the unexpected crisis without incurring long-term financial strain.

Support during the incident—including vendor escalations, recovery assistance, and resource scaling—was fully covered under the city’s existing agreement with Blue Iron Technologies. There were no added support fees, and the collaboration between Blue Iron and Zadara ensured continuity without delays or excessive cost.

Additional resource usage was billed only by the hour and strictly based on actual utilization. Once the emergency subsided and the temporary file systems were removed, resource consumption quickly returned to baseline levels. As a result:

• The total cost impact was minimal, with only a temporary uptick in that month’s usage.
• There were no surprise charges or support overages.
• The city maintained budget predictability, even during a high-pressure recovery operation.

This flexible, pay-as-you-use model proved to be not only scalable but also financially sustainable, offering municipalities like Mont Belvieu a practical way to handle spikes in demand without overcommitting on infrastructure or incurring hidden costs.