Upgrading Core IT Infrastructure

The problem

Like many similar-sized organisations, Gowrings employed a dedicated IT person on-site to ensure efficient day-to-day running of the IT systems and seek technology improvements to the service provided by Gowrings to its clients. When this person left the company, Gowrings took the opportunity to hire an independent consultant to review the IT infrastructure, with the objective of improving it while reducing the company’s reliance on a full-time IT technician.

Micropoint were one of the companies invited to meet the independent consultant and critique a proposed new infrastructure and software solution. The consultant’s pilot solution was embedded with small flaws designed to test the knowledge of any prospective partner, and was open-ended enough to enable the prospective partner to suggest alternative solutions that would meet Gowrings’ objectives.

The consultant and Gowrings directors were sufficiently impressed by our knowledge, capabilities and suggestions that we were invited to provide a fully detailed proposal for the IT infrastructure.

Our solution

Working closely with the independent consultant, we designed and implemented a challenging upgrade to Gowrings’ IT infrastructure. The future-proof upgrade was carried out over a three-month period, and included:

enlargement of the existing server room, including all building works
installation of a new 30amp electricity supply
installation of a new fibre link between Gowrings’ main factory site and their showroom
redesign of the Active Directory component of the server platform
installation of a new file and print server
installation of a new database server
installation of a new backup solution
design and implementation of the terminal service environment
installation of a new terminal server

Implementation

We appointed a dedicated core team of Micropoint IT professionals to work closely with Gowrings and their consultant throughout the project. Our team consisted of an account and project manager, a technical manager and a lead technical engineer. They were assisted, when required, by various Micropoint personnel with years of relevant practical experience in implementing similar solutions as those needed by Gowrings Mobility.

To ensure that there was absolutely no downtime or disruption to Gowrings’ normal day-to-day operations, we spilt the installation into a series of separate stages.

Working closely with the client’s own health and safety officer, we appointed a liaison officer to ensure that all external on-site personnel followed company procedures and adhered to clearly defined safety guidelines.

After drawing up detailed plans for the server room, our refurbishment team began by removing a stud partition wall, and disposing of the waste. A new stud partition wall with a fire rating of 30 minutes was installed, and a new doorway constructed. The suspended ceiling was adjusted to fit the new layout and all surfaces were redecorated.

With the server room works completed, a new cabinet was installed, together with a new uninterruptible power supply (UPS) fed by a clean 30amp power source taken directly from the main 3-phase distribution board. Our NIC-EIC registered electricians carried out these works and provided full installation documentation.

While these works were taking place, our technical team designed a new IP schema and Active Directory to accommodate the changes required when moving from a network controlled by a single server to one with multiple servers. New units were built off-site to perform the roles of database server, file and print server and backup server.

Two of the new servers were installed into the new cabinet and the existing server was demoted to the role of exchange server. The existing two databases were migrated to the newly installed database server and brought online. All relevant data was migrated to the new file and print server, and the backup server was temporarily installed in the showroom, creating a disaster recovery capability.

Client’s comments

“We were attracted to Micropoint as their representative was very professional, energetic, proactive and easy to get on with. He talked about Micropoint's ethics and working practices with pride, explaining the structure, how the team work together and assuring access to the MD should we need to. We were impressed and felt we could work well with this company. Our IT consultant put them to the test and they rose to the occasion offering a radical solution proving themselves and their team with enthusiasm. The solution we finally chose has proved to be ideal for us.”

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