Case study: The Vintners Company
Cloud Migration: Decommission Old Servers and Support IT in the Microsoft Cloud
“Their advice was clear and simple, which was followed up by a very efficient piece of project work… a pleasure to deal with.”
Glenn Roberts, Operations Manager – The Vintners Company
Company: The Vintners Company
Sector: Retail
The Vintners company is one of the Twelve Great Livery Companies of the City of London. Its origins are steeped in the history of the City of London and the import, regulation and sale of wine since its first charter in 1363. The company continues to maintain strong links with the UK wine trade, with Vintners’ Hall known as the trade’s “spiritual home”. With its trade, social, charitable and educational interests, The Vintners Company continues to play an important role in the 21st century.
The Scenario: Decommission The Vintners Company servers and support their IT in the Microsoft Cloud
Glenn Roberts, the Operations Manager at the Vintners Company, contacted TechQuarters because he was running a hybrid cloud network with in-house file servers and his employees already accessed their data and email via the Cloud. Glenn was very forward thinking and believed in the Cloud, so he chose to migrate the business to Google Apps.
The problem was all the staff were stiåll using network services delivered by the servers and an old paradox CRM database that resided on one of them. Glenn wanted to reclaim the floor space, save on his electricity bills, and move everyone to the Cloud within the organisation.
So the TechQuarters mission was to migrate the Paradox CRM system to Glenn’s local drive, migrate all network services to the firewall and keep everyone printing, as well as turning off the servers, storing them safely off-site and then supporting Vintners network and desktops thereafter.
How TechQuarters helped: Decommission old servers and support IT in the Microsoft Cloud
The network cupboard area contained two servers and a cabinet. Vintners were using Google Apps and Syncplicity for data storage, backup and email. The main server that contained the Paradox system was migrated to Glenn’s local computer and the network services were moved to the SonicWall firewall.
There were two internet lines coming into the building which were configured to perform a failover through the firewall, so if one line goes down the other line automatically kicks in to avoid any internet downtime. The desktops required anti-virus software standardizing and updating, so the latest version of Kaspersky anti-virus was rolled out across the network. The users were configured to print directly to the printers and the servers were decommissioned and taken off-site.
The Results
The results of the project to Decommission Old Servers and Support IT in the Microsoft Cloud
- The servers were decommissioned and removed in 24 hours
- All users access data and email in the Cloud
- All users print directly to the printers
- The electricity bill was significantly reduced
- The floor space was reclaimed
- The internet lines contained a failover
- The Vintners Company have a full business IT continuity plan
- The Vintners Company now have flexible working in the cloud
What The Vintners Company said
“Our servers were taking up too much space and not doing an awful lot, so we wanted to clear them out and reclaim the space. We had moved our email and data to the Cloud so our network was relying on the server for CRM and general network services. TechQuarters decommissioned them and moved our network services to the new firewall.
All our printing is now working perfectly and the internet has a backup configured so we don’t ever go down. Their advice was clear and simple, which was followed up by a very efficient piece of project work. TechQuarters support our whole network and I must say they are a pleasure to deal with!”
Glenn Roberts, Operations Manager – The Vintners Company