Transform Network Performance with Lower Support Costs

Compu-Stor

Since 1987, Compu-Stor has provided holistic records management solutions to businesses across Australia. As a privately owned Australian business, Compu-Stor works with customers to provide customised and cost-effective solutions across document imaging, storage, backups, and data recovery. The company has over 50 employees across their Perth, Melbourne and Sydney offices.

Jeremy Manford, Director at Compu-Stor explains the importance of ‘seeking first to understand’, which is one of First Focus’ core values.

‘Going through the process with someone who takes the time to understand our business and explains how the solution will fit has been a major benefit, particularly without an internal IT person.’

The Challenge

Compu-Stor’s IT Infrastructure had been ageing for some time and had not kept pace with their interstate expansion. This was causing a number of flow-on effects including a high number of faults and downtime. Unacceptably high ticket volumes were being logged with the service desk, and this was resulting in unpredictable support and maintenance costs. Compounding this, Compu-Stor users were unable to reliably share documents between state offices, and this was holding back Compu-Stor’s ability to scale.

Why First Focus?

Compu-Stor was seeking a provider with a genuine national presence and the ability to cost-effectively coordinate a complex project across 3 capital cities. However, the major reason First Focus was chosen, was the way we went about understanding Compu-Stor’s business first, before designing the solution.

“Having a provider who understands Compu-Stor, and has the right resources, makes it a greatly aligned partnership,” said Jeremy.

The Solution

The solution we implemented spanned a range of technical areas. The foundation of the new network was a new MPLS WAN built on our multi-carrier network core, and supported out of the First Focus Network Operations Centre, with dedicated bandwidth to our Private Cloud facilities. This provided reliable high-performance bandwidth between all sites and access to a full range of cloud infrastructure. Next, the legacy servers were upgraded and virtualised using Microsoft Hyper-V, and a full AD federated Office 365 rollout was performed, including upgrading local MS Office across the network. At the same time, our cloud-hosted Mitel PABX and Unified Communications solution was rolled out and integrated across all state offices. Finally, we added a full suite of managed network security services including managed Cisco Firewalls, Webroot antivirus, SolarWinds Network monitoring, Storagecraft backups, and replication.

“All major implementations were done well, and any issues were quickly resolved. When issues did occur, solving the problem as quickly as possible is critical and First Focus delivers on that, which has been great. Response and fast resolutions at all turns,” said Jeremy.

Business results and benefits

The end result has been a transformation in both the performance of the network and the functionality available to staff. There has been a significant reduction in downtime from both the network and the server infrastructure, and ticket volumes and support costs have fallen dramatically.

Jeremy concludes by explaining the business transformation.

‘Such fundamental changes to the approach to the business since First Focus came on board have led to different thinking. Having the right partner has left our staff feeling they have confidence in IT to achieve their roles.’

Compustor’s IT infrastructure is now all managed under a single outsourcing agreement including all support and infrastructure, all available under a simple monthly subscription and scalable to meet any future need of the business.