Case Study - Silicone Altimex
About Silicone Altimex
From their base in Stapleford, Nottingham Silicone Altimex provides high quality, integrated elastomeric solutions to medicl device and bio-pharmaceutical manufacturers. They engaged Your IT Department as their IT partner in October 2019 to work alongside the Technical Manager .
What Was Going Wrong
Staff were frustrated with slow computers, the Technical Manager was having sleepless nights about the server, and he didn’t know if the backups were working – he did know they were causing the server to crash!
An indepth network audit revealed a 6 year server running an outdated operating system and several older PC’s running Windows 7, a potential security and productivity issue.
The backup solution wasn’t easily visible to the Technical Manager and was causing the server to crash and take the network down.
What We Did.....
- Agreed a plan of action and budget
- Replaced all old PC's and eradictaed Windows 7 from the network
- Replaced the server with 2 Dell PowerEdge 740 Servers, migrated systems and used virtualisation and load balancing
- Introduced our fully managed backup solution
How This Has Helped
- Enhanced PC and network speeds across the business
- Vastly reduced downtime
- A reliable, fully managed backup visible to the Technical Manager
- Secure system with a robust backup solution in place.
What Silicone Altimex Thought
“One word would be seamless, another would be professional. I know most people would look at the project and say it was easy but that would be so wrong!
The servers were way out of date and obviously would not be compatible with up-to-date software. There were multiple parties involved and most of them in different times zones. Our company had gone through many transitions of ownership and IT support including people on the ground who actually knew the functions of the server in detail. Another important point not to be overlooked was the company politics, always best to be diplomatic!
Your IT Department approached the project in a logical organised manner and did not underestimate where potential issues might occur. There was no hesitation when the time came to make the change as they were fully prepared with alternative solutions if issues occurred.
The timeline was tight and no downtime would be acceptable as this would cripple the factory. This was no problem for Your IT Department as their Project Engineer sorted it while I was sleeping. I must say he was excellent; communication was one hundred & ten percent as I knew exactly what was happening and when along the way. In addition to this the follow up was first rate as he kept in contact for days afterwards to see if any issues had presented themselves.
Weeks on after the project I am so happy as I now know we have a robust server and back-up system in place. Thank you Your IT Department, we are in control again!
Thomas O’Shaughnessy
Technical Manager