Morgan Keating
Off Site Hosting; Microsoft Small Business Server 2003/8

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At a glance

Challenge

To reduce operational costs and to become a more virtual organization.

Solution

LAN Support to host a Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 R2 within LAN Support’s own Infrastructure. To providing remote access to productivity applications, databases, email and calendar as if the client was accessing their own server within their own office. Full data backup and administration of the server including user accounts. printing and security. LAN to provide IT monthly support program with on-site, help desk and remote managed services provided by a dedicated support team.

Results

Hosting a Microsoft Small Business Server within the LAN I.T. Infrastructure within a virtual environment. Client was able to close their office at Dunley Hill Court to become a more virtual organization while saving thousands of pounds a year in the process.

Hosted solution means no more future technology refreshes or hardware maintenance costs, continuing the savings ongoing.

All staff can work from any location ‘worldwide’ and obtain access to critical data and company information.

I.T. Professionals beside their server for immediate attention if required. Increased server capacity with full fault tolerance. Full network security against viruses and employee misuse. Full and reliable backups. Ongoing IT Technical and administration support.

Business challenge

Morgan Keating is a specialist UK corporate healthcare recruitment consultancy, established in 1986, to meet the growing need for qualified people. Their quality led, search and selection recruitment consultant’s work with candidates from traditional and new talent pools, within both healthcare and related industries.  Business enquires never stop coming in with new opportunities opening on a daily basis in all demographic areas within the UK. Travelling to and from a static office in Shere, Surrey which held no logical catchment area for our business activities just did not make any sense. It soon become apparent that the need for an office was slightly cosmetic and not really required apart from providing a central location for our server and I.T requirements.  We turned to LAN Support and asked them for some advice. 

Crucially, the new hosted server had to be specified, configured, installed, tested and ready to run by the next working day.

LAN Support Solution

After a selection process, Kate Bloomfield, Managing Director chose LAN Support to implement and host their Microsoft Small Business Server.

• Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 R2 will be hosted at LAN Support and was recommended as Morgan Keating was already using this type of server, thanks to its integrated set of common applications such as, Windows Server 2008 and Microsoft Exchange.
• The existing server would be decommissioned on a Friday, have its data transferred onto the virtual server and would be up and operational on Sunday. To keep downtime to an absolute minimum LAN planned the installation and rigorously checked all configurations, talked to third party vendors and planned it’s installation out of office hours.
• To keep a high level of uptime and fault tolerance our virtual servers are RAID 5 enabled and configured meaning the failure on one or more disks would not bring the network to a halt.
• Morgan Keating would not have to concern themselves with having to backup the server as LAN Support make daily backups.
• LAN Support investigated and recommended that the email domain names were moved from a non trusted provider to a trusted partner and that SMTP was fully enabled.
• An ongoing bespoke support package incorporating administration of the new system along with help desk support and remote managed services was advised.

Results

• The installation of a Microsoft Small Business Server delivering file, print and document sharing from a remote location.
• All staff had access to calendar information so they could plan and view employee movements.
• Installation was carried out over a weekend which meant that there little disruption to staff and customers alike.
• Extensive backup solution provided working backups and peace of mind.
• Substantially lower support and maintenance costs than the old system.
• Within budgetary limitations.
• Any staff member is able to call LAN Support’s Help Desk and they receive regular on-site monthly visits.
• Saved thousands of pounds a year in office running costs.

Testimonial, Kate Bloomfield – Director  

“We had two main reasons for proceeding with a Hosted solution – the first was to reduce costs and this involved Morgan Keating closing their office at Dunley Hill Court to become a more virtual organization.   Although we have incurred additional costs from LAN Support to host the server these are offset by the overheads saved by having no office.  Also with remote working, having the server hosted gave us more flexibility and also meant that when there were server problems, it was actually at LAN so corrective action could be taken immediately rather than waiting for one of us to be available.”

“We estimate annually we have saved £20,000 in fixed costs as well as immeasurable time and travel costs to and from the office.”. 

“Has this met our expectations? Absolutely, and exceeded them we would recommend this service to any similar company!”