IT is one of those things you think, “Ah its not broke, so don’t need to fix it” but in the harsh reality of life, up to date also means more Secure.
In latter part of 2020 there was a wholesale review of the current IT Hardware infrastructure at Grinsty Rail, which went from the grass roots and up through the corporate structure.
It was identified that Capital investment was needed to bring the corporation up to date from a Hardware and Software prospective, this wasn’t because it didn’t work, it was to ensure that all the hard work that was being done in the background from Sales Orders to financials were cyber protected and being done on the most state of the art Hardware that was available.
The Board decided to invest in both Software and Hardware to accomplish these efficiencies and take advantage of the technological enhancements up to date tech gives you and as part of the grow and expand strategy we embarked on an overhaul of the majority of our back office IT Hardware.
Roll out of brand new Lenovo desktops and Laptops were put out into the corporation, Firewalls updated, Servers and Virtual Servers created, leading to a State of the art, cyber safe infrastructure for both the Redditch and Nottingham sites. This was with the help of Page IT who did the roll out for us.
Commenting on the investment and the future proofing of the organization, Matt Perry-Parker FD / MD Designate said: “Investment in such a critical part of the organization for me is a no-brainer. We have years of data stored on our servers and within a digital infrastructure, its makes no sense for it not to be protected properly. We are investing in a new MRP and Finance system in the coming months, this needs to be supported by the state of the art hardware to run that. As well as the new software we are investing in, its also vitally important that this is in a safe and secure environment, hence why virtual servers etc are so much more secure than the old fashioned Tape backups that used to be around.”
Dave Pagett of Page IT Solutions comment
What started off as a request for a Cyber Essentials audit turned out to be a whole new infrastructure refresh. Grinsty Rail was your typical customer, focused on growing their business and surviving in the current economic climate with no time to look at their IT infrastructure.
Working with Grinsty Rail and the new Finance Director – Matt Perry-Parker – was refreshing, in that they recognised the need to replace their aging hardware, add security and also protect their data.
Page IT Solutions originally went in to discuss options to take Grinsty Rail through Cyber Essentials Basic, upon finding an IT infrastructure based on Windows Server 2008r2 and Windows 7 operating systems there was no point in starting the project as it would be an instant failure and a waste of time and money.
Working alongside the directors of Grinsty Rail, Page IT set about understanding what the business was trying to achieve and where it wanted to go. Armed with this knowledge, Page IT Solutions put a proposal together to upgrade the infrastructure, including:
- Replace 8 physical servers
- Replace all workstations/laptops
- Replace Wi-Fi Solution
- New Anti-Virus Solution
- Implement an onsite and offsite backup
- Provide Managed IT Support Services
As soon a budget had been approved and timeframes set, Page IT Solutions put a project plan together, again working with the directors at Grinsty Rail, notice of the impending rollout and potential downtime was communicated.
The plan was implemented over a two week period with no impact on the day-to-day running business.
Grinsty Rail now have a secure, robust IT infrastructure that can support the business and future growth. The next Phase of the project in to go back to when we first met and take them through the Cyber Essentials certification.
