Background Information

Client A is the world’s leading manufacturer of pneumatic blowing equipment. They are a small team working collaboratively to design, market, manufacture and support their products.

Client A had a small on-premises server, which had reached its end-of-life and was operating at capacity. Workstations were behind on their refresh cycle and outdated. Maintenance had been deferred on IT equipment and the needs of the business were exceeding the capabilities of the infrastructure.

The Challenge

With aging IT equipment, Client A reached out to StepUP IT Services to provide a managed services solution. Our assessment indicated most of the equipment could not be supported. However, there were capital expense constraints that would prevent a full refresh of the existing infrastructure design.

Additionally, there were issues with supporting their infrastructure in a managed services environment. Locally managed security, authentication and endpoints would require an increased infrastructure from the small workgroup that had existed, adding pressure on capital expenses and ongoing maintenance costs.

Client A needed a simple solution with minimal capital expense, have very little impact on business workflows, and would also allow a managed services provider to minimize their IT maintenance overhead.

The Solution

An analysis revealed that most of their data consisted of Microsoft Office documents and marketing design files. Older systems that required local network services had been decommissioned or were in the process of being removed from their business workflows. There was no longer a need for the business to have network services on the LAN.

Their collaborative workflow was an excellent fit for Microsoft’s Azure-based solutions, including Office 365, Teams, and SharePoint Online. Their documents and data flows fit within the best-case scenario for Microsoft’s Cloud vision.

Workstations were refreshed, Office 365 deployed and data migrated to SharePoint Online. SharePoint documents were connected to OneDrive to minimize user impact of moving to cloud storage and users were trained on how to manage shared cloud storage. Authentication was centralized within Azure Active Directory.

Results

By taking advantage of this cloud solution, Client A saved over $5500 on upfront implementation, and they used existing 365 licensing to their advantage. In the end, they walked away with new cloud infrastructure, increased security, new and up-to-date workstations, and efficient workflow processes, all while staying in budget.