Development of a Cloud-based IT Environment

The Problem / Situation

EMEA Recruitment is a fast growing recruitment business with a £1.2m turnover based out of serviced offices.

The company had 5 PCs configured on a local area network and all data was hosted offsite, with data retrieved via a Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection. They were using standard POP3 email accounts and the Directors and employees worked remotely on a regular basis.

Their main issues revolved around slow access to business files via the VPN connection, remote server outages which caused system downtime, poor telephone call quality, limited email functionality and occasional loss of connectivity.

Their existing IT infrastructure was preventing them from focusing on their core business and restricted their ability to roll out new business systems including a bespoke recruitment database.

The Solution

In order to rectify these issues, we proposed they adopt Air IT’s cloud based server solution, which would be fully managed by Air-IT and housed in a fully secure and purpose built datacentre.

The server is accessed via terminal services and provides a solid foundation for the company’s ICT requirements to grow including the hosting of a bespoke business application that may be acquired as the company expands.

We migrated the company’s email from POP3 to a hosted Microsoft Exchange solution which provides advanced functionality and increased resilience.

To improve telephone reliability, we configured a redundant broadband line as a dedicated line for VoIP traffic, which enabled us to route a portion of the phones down the existing ADSL connection and the other portion via the existing VoIP ADSL line. This provided the phones with additional bandwidth and resilience should one of the ADSL lines fail or disconnect.

Air-IT also provided Protect-IT, their in-house offsite backup solution, a full maintenance contract and on-going technical support.

The Outcome

Our solution provided EMEA Recruitment with a sound foundation to their infrastructure providing peace of mind and stability for their IT systems to grow. Their IT environment is now secure, resilient and future proof and will support the company’s growth well beyond the foreseeable future.

By using a cloud solution, the company is able to adopt the latest enterprise level software for a simple monthly fee and costs associated with hardware replacement and upgrades are eliminated. This has the additional benefit of significantly improving budgetary management (simplifies budgeting by providing a predictable monthly operational expense for IT costs which is based on a cost per user basis).

The hosted Microsoft Exchange provides a leading edge email solution with unified / synchronised messaging across PCs, the web and mobile devices. It also allows collaboration through the sharing of calendars, contacts and documents and facilitates remote working through web browser or smart phone connectivity. These benefits allow employees to work smarter and more efficiently from anywhere in the world.

Remote working is further enhanced through the terminal services solution which provides secure access to business applications and company data. This provides remote and mobile workers with access to key internal company information that is needed to perform their jobs and enables them to work flexibly when they are away from the office.

The IP phone system is now both reliable and resilient and call quality has been dramatically improved. This has improved employee efficiency and productivity levels and has eliminated instances where clients are unable to call the office.

The Protect-IT Offsite backup solution has ensured business continuity and has provided an automated and failsafe backup strategy. Critical company data is protected and is available for immediate restore in the event of failure or any unforeseen disaster.

Client Feedback

Paul Toms, Managing Director of EMEA Recruitment provided the following feedback:

“Air-IT have taken over the management of our IT environment, they are far superior in comparison to our previous IT provider and have saved us significant amounts of time through operational efficiencies including our internet speed and the ability to work remotely.

The speed in which they respond to our queries, even out of hours is excellent. We have had no major IT incidents over the last 12 months and the new IT environment has facilitated our growth from 4 employees to 13 within 12 months. Using Air-IT is like having a virtual IT Manager that we can rely on and trust to sort out any IT issues or needs that we may have.”