Challenge
A member-based consumer electronics merchandising group, which assists their membership with education, purchase power, networking, training and vendor special pricing, computer system was running on soon-to-be outdated and unsupported operating systems and servers. They were using an on-premises physical server with end of life operating systems and deprecated equipment. The systems and software were being held hostage by an ex-employee. The systems had no backups, no redundant power nor did the company have any business continuity plans in place. They faced a dilemma: either buy new hardware and software or move their system to the cloud.
Solution
This merchandising group specializing in both consumer electronics and specialty products decided to go with a FirstLink comprehensive cloud migration service strategy tailored for their immediate needs and future growth. The solution was multiple secure cloud servers consisting of a domain controller for authentication, a file server for storage, and an application server for their accounting software. This solution solved a number of challenges for the company. First it alleviated any concerns for the data and software being held hostage by the rouge employee, secondly it freed them from the office space lease, a savings of over $60,000 per year and finally it created a secure environment that can scale as the company grows. A VPN was set up to ensure a secure connection to the server. Now employees are able to access resources from anywhere in the world with ease and increased security. They now have nightly backups and monitoring and management agents on all servers. Our staff can remotely access and assist the users to determine their resource needs. Overall, they are much leaner, lighter, and more productive in their new cloud environment.