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The challenges.
The client take-on audit uncovered numerous performance issues.
When taking over from the previous IT Support Company, a member of our Consultancy team visited our client’s office to conduct an IT Infrastructure audit. We conducted an audit for the purpose of documenting essential information that’s needed to provide day-to-day IT support – in addition to assessing the purpose and performance of the clients existing IT Systems.
The client was using an outdated server.
The take-on audit uncovered one of the oldest servers that we’ve found in the wild for quite some time! The server hardware in question was 10 years old and running an outdated version of Small Business Server that was under performing because the outdated hardware was unable to keep pace with the Business growth.
The hard disks were running at full capacity, with no further room available in the server for expansion. In addition, the CPU was frequently hitting 100% usage because the number of users accessing the server was growing week-on-week.
In addition.
Users were experiencing numerous problems with their emails because they were hosted on the same server – within Microsoft Windows Small Business Server. Users were getting frustrated because Outlook was regularly crashing, Emails were going missing and on many occasions emails were unreadable because they were getting corrupted.
Lastly.
The client recently experienced critical data loss because their existing tape solution failed. The clients Backup solution was an LTO tape backup drive that was scheduled to run a daily backup. However, no one was rotating the backup tapes and the only tape being used for data backup had become corrupted. Because of this, the clients data couldn’t be restored.
Our solution.
The above performance issues (along with frequent reboots) were affecting our clients Business efficiency and productivity. It soon became clear that a server upgrade was necessary to keep pace with the expansion of the business. It was also necessary to ensure the clients Business Continuity by replacing the outdated backup drive with an automated Cloud-based backup solution.
Install a new Dell PowerEdge server.
We replaced our clients outdated server with a brand-new Dell PowerEdge T340 server. This tower-based model offers fantastic value for money, especially for Small Businesses on a budget that require a highly capable in-house server – which can be scaled to facilitate future Business growth.
Outstanding Server performance on a budget.
The server we configured for our client features a 4-core Intel Xeon processor, 16GB of memory and 3 x lightning-fast SAS drives configured in RAID to ensure that no data is lost in the event of a disk failure. Our operating system of choice was Windows Server 2019, which features a number of key security and functionality improvements over the 2016 version.
As another form Business Continuity moving forward, the server that we sourced for our client included a 3-year Dell Next Day Business warranty. This will ensure that downtime is minimised in the very rare event of hardware failure.
Install Microsoft Exchange Server 2019.
To address the clients Email problems, we installed Microsoft Exchange Server 2019. As you would expect, this is by far the fastest and most reliable version of Exchange to date. Exchange 2019 has been re-engineered to use more processor cores and RAM, in addition to adding dual storage read/write capabilities for Solid State Drive (SSD) technology, improving the overall end user experience.
Switch from Onsite to Cloud Backup.
In order to protect our clients business critical data, we replaced their outdated onsite tape backup drive with an Online Cloud backup solution.
Online Backup is the most secure and reliable automated backup solution. Using 256-bit military grade encryption, an incremental backup of our clients data is sent across the internet to a secure backup location in the Cloud. This data is then replicated to a second data centre – ensuring that the data will never be lost. The client’s backup is scheduled to run overnight so the Internet bandwidth inn the office isn’t affected during the day.
The Outcome.
With the help of Ohso Technical, the client has made a successful transition from a 10-year-old Server to a state-of-the-Art Dell Server that can be scaled to facilitate future Business growth.
Following the Project sign-off, we completed the server migration project for our client over a weekend, with zero disruption to their productivity during Business hours.
Starting Friday evening, our project management team successfully completed a full migration from SBS 2008 to Windows Server and Exchange Server 2019. This included the migration of Active Directory, 3rd party applications and any additional client data that was being hosted on the original server. All of the client’s mailboxes, calendars and contacts were then successfully migrated to Exchange Server 2019.
Once the migration was complete, we then setup and configured the clients Online Backup solution to ensure that all client data and emails are being backed up in a cloud environment.
We then attended the client’s office on Monday morning to resolve any post migration user issues.
What was achieved?
- Productivity (and profitability) has increased – The staff are much happier and far more productive because their working day is no longer being disrupted by constant downtime. Rebooting the server three times a day is now a thing of the past.
- The client has a better upgrade path – The Dell Server that we installed has the capacity to be scaled up for future Business growth. Upgrade paths are available for additional storage, memory and processing power when required.
- Email performance is much improved – With the introduction of Exchange 2019, the client’s email is now faster and far more reliable. And thanks to the additional storage space, users can have a mailbox size of at least 2GB.
- Business Continuity has been assured through a reliable automated backup solution – Thanks to the implementation of an Online Backup solution, our client no longer has to worry about losing ANY of their Business-Critical data that’s backed up and replicated in the Cloud. In addition, data can be restored in seconds.