Situation
The customer had a network of about 15 PCs connected to a fileserver that provided files storage and shared accounting software. There was WiFi available in some parts of the building. Many of the PCs were aging and most employees had color inkjet printers attached to their PC.
Customer used MS Office that was server based. Server backup was done manually to an external disk that was taken offsite. The server was about 8 years old and had RAID drives with a redundant power supplies.
Issues
- Network wiring in the closet was in disarray and ports were not marked.
- Switches were to capacity.
- WiFi was spotty and did not cover the building.
- The server was aging.
- The customer was unaware that one of the redundant power supplies have failed and the remaining power supply was about to fail.
- No backup of the server was available – only the data.
- The current IT vendor was on a time & materials contract and is was unresponsive for routine issues. (Customer was used to waiting 1-2 weeks for routine service issues)
- A new AT&T fiber circuit was installed several months prior but the customer saw no increase in speed.
Pending Crisis
The remaining power supply failed making the server crash and the O/S unable to boot back up. There is no maintenance contracts on the server hardware. It is almost Christmas.
Resolution
Prior to the server crash, North Indy had contacted the company and made a proposal for the Concierge Service program. Company accepted the proposal and shortly after the server failed. North Indy did the following:
- Purchased a new rack mounted file server from Dell. It had RAID 5 drives and an upgraded Microsoft Server 2016 O/S installed. Hardware maintenance was purchased from Dell.
- A used power supply was found online and the server was able to access the external drives.
- Data was finally extracted from the old external RAID drive on the non-functioning server and copied to the new server.
- New users and policies were created on the new server and the users were able to do business again.
- Since the existing wall server rack in the closet was too small, a floor rack was installed and all equipment became rack mounted.
- Cable control was added to the rack and the wiring cleaned up.
- The old firewall was replaced by a new Ubiguity firewall to enhance security.
- The one existing Wifi Access point was replaced by three meshed based Ubiquity APs.
- Backup of the server was automated and backed up to the cloud.
- Fiber internet speed was resolved giving the customer the purchased bandwidth.
- Eighty percent of all PCs were replaced with Lenovo tiny, solid state based drives.
- User data was transfer to the cloud and put into Teams. Departments were created to replace network mappings.
- New virus/malware were installed via the cloud with remote control support access
- Customers now had direct access to their Technology Strategist and got rapid response and onsite visits on a weekly basis.
- Customer is very happy and the IT issues has gone away.
