Case Study: Helping a 40 year-old small business move forward
- Customer: Stemar
- Company size: 30 seats
When we first met Stemar Electrical Products Pty Ltd, they were running a five year old Small Business Server that provided the core of all of their IT operations; including their Line of Business application (LOB), Firewall and Mail Systems. Their pain points specifically were budget constraints, reliability, scalability, slow performance and potential security threats.
For a 40 year old company looking to double their turnover in the next 3 years, this old network was a major obstacle to their growth; they needed to lay the foundation stones that would allow them to develop and achieve their business goals.
Another significant pain point was the fact that their growing IT infrastructure was taking the focus of key personnel away from what was most important to the business and directing them instead to everyday, ongoing IT issues.
Our solution? The scope of Stemar's requirements called for a standalone File Server, SQL Server, Firewall and Terminal Server. Rather than installing four individual physical servers, Correct Solutions implemented a platform utilising Windows Server 2008 and Hyper-V; then virtualised all four server roles onto one physical server.
Tangible Business Results. Typically, our solution results in a quantifiable reduction in upfront hardware investment, a reduction in ongoing maintenance and management costs, measurable improvements in performance and subsequent productivity improvements.
The outcome for Stemar?
Upfront and ongoing cost savings -
In Stemar's case, they saved close to $30,000 in initial hardware expenditure. Ongoing costs such as hardware warranties, service and maintenance were also reduced through server consolidation. Our solution promoted the "right product, right license" philosophy to make sure smart licensing solutions were provided to the customer.
(Click here for a video Microsoft produced based on this case study!)
Faster processing times -
Stemar's primary Line of Business application is SQL based. Previously a payroll run could take up to five minutes per entry to process. After implementing our solution, that same process now takes 30 seconds per entry. Many other reports and activities are now completed efficiently by staff members across the course of a day. All those minutes spent waiting for data to be returned are finally being used productively.
A safer environment for customers and better security for Stemar -
Our solution has provided an extremely secure environment. Stemar's Web Portal is now protected which in turn will see an increase in their customers' satisfaction level, who can use the Portal knowing that their credit details are secure. In addition, the ability to monitor internal Web activity reduces Stemar's risk from a security perspective and also addresses any subsequent productivity issues.
Vastly improved system stability -
As far as Stemar are concerned, the fact that their server no longer crashes and repeatedly blue screens makes it clear that the new solution is infinitely more reliable! Windows Server 2008 forms the cornerstone of the new environment and much of the newfound stability can be attributed simply to that. Back up and disaster recovery of the new system is greatly improved through the use of Windows Server 2008 disk based backup.
New peace of mind -
Back-ups not only take less time but can be scheduled to run at hourly intervals to reduce the amount of data lost should an unexpected event occur. In addition, the fact that their system is now virtualised, it is also "hardware independent" - in a DR scenario you could restore their system on just about any piece of suitable hardware.
Trusted return on Investment -
Stemar's initial analysis calculates that due to productivity gains, this new system will see a return on investment in 14 months, if not sooner. This was a key requirement in the decision making process, as Stemar have a rule that all major capital investments must show a return on investment within 2 years of purchase.
Ongoing Support and relationship strengthening -
Our range of preventative and proactive support options (known as Network Care Plans) effectively allow Stemar to relinquish the responsibility of all those day-to-day IT issues and focus on what is really important to them; their primary business objectives.
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Case Study: Solving a SMB client's pain point - concurrent access to the MYOB Database.
- Customer: Field Furnace Refractories - Wetherill Park, 2164
- Company size: 5 - 10 seats
Field Furnace is a small business that specialises in the supply of refractory products for industrial, commercial and domestic purposes.
Field Furnace approached Correct Solutions for some assistance in solving an issue they were having with multi-user access to MYOB. Their IT environment consisted of a local area network. They needed to have their MYOB database available to more than one user at a time and with their existing setup, this just wasn't feasible.
In addition, Field Furnace was looking for a solution that would enable files to be shared and stored centrally, company data to be backed up securely, enable everyone access to the internet and provide an email platform that allowed users to enjoy the full Outlook experience - access to emails, shared calendars and contacts, tasks etc.
Field Furnace also recognised they really needed to update an aging fleet of PCs that had been accumulated over time and consisted of a mix of consumer PCs and white boxes.
Due to Field Furnace's size and growth projections, Correct Solutions felt that Windows Server 2008 Foundation would be a perfect fit for this client's needs. In conjunction with the Microsoft BPOS suite, Windows Server 2008 Foundation - deployed on a HP ProLiant Server - met all of the client's requirements, providing a stable, secure IT platform to support the business.
Field Furnace also took Correct's advice when it came to upgrading their PC fleet. HP Business PCs enable them to benefit from longer product life cycles, reliable, well-tested hardware and longer standard warranty options, as well as energy-efficient designs that reduce their power consumption.
Correct were able to configure MYOB to run in a Terminal Services environment on the Foundation Server platform; with Remote Desktop Services enabled for each user, Field Furnace can now easily and efficient access their MYOB data base in a concurrent manner, reliably from their HP Business PCs.
Hardware deployed (2010):
• ML330G6 ProLiant Server
• HP Pro 6000 Small Form Factor Desktop PCs