Case Studies
These case studies are a typical selection of customers for whom Shadowfax provides IT solutions. These clients have given their consent to act as references so please feel to contact them.
Case Study 1 - Insight Associates
Background
Insight Associates is a firm of Finance Managers and Chartered Certified Accountants specialising in financial management and corporate turnaround work based in Essex. Principally working with small to medium sized businesses to support and improve their financial management.
Before this project, Insight had a small network of around six PCs with a file server running Small Business Server 2000. Insight makes extensive use of Outlook and Exchange Public Folders. Most of the staff frequently work away from the office at client sites.
Customer Requirements
The requirements for this project were:
- To improve server response times
- To improve the remote working experience
- To minimize disruption and changes to the existing network
- To allow Shadowfax to easily provide remote support
Solution and Benefits
In March 2004, Shadowfax built a new server for Insight and deployed Small Business Server 2003 Premium Edition. The deployment was carried out as a migration from the existing SBS 2000 server to the new server thereby preserving existing user accounts and minimizing the amount of work to be carried out and the amount of downtime.
The combination of the new more powerful server and the use of Windows 2003 Server (part of the SBS2003 suite) provided Insight with greatly increased performance.
The remote working experience was much improved through the use of Exchange 2003 Outlook Web Access and the Remote Workplace. All client PCs have Outlook 2003 thereby making the maximum advantage of Exchange 2003's cached mode.
One of the new features of Windows Server 2003 that Insight found particularly useful was the Shadow Copy client; this allows staff to access previous versions of files without having to restore files from backup tapes.
Case Study 2 - AC Appointments
Background
AC Appointments is a multi-disciplined recruitment consultancy covering most areas of permanent, temporary and fixed contract employment. The firm has three offices in Herts and Essex.
AC Appointments had a small network of PCs with a Netware 3 server used for file sharing and a Windows 98 PC for shared Internet access and running important business applications.
Customer Requirements
AC Appointments were concerned at the age of the Windows 98 PC and the lack of support for the Netware server.
The requirements for this project were to:
- Replace the Netware 3 server with a more readily supported solution
- To provide centralized backup
- To provide the capability for remote support
Solution and Benefits
Shadowfax implemented a new server with Small Business Server 2003 Standard edition so that AC Appointments could realise the benefits of a domain-based network rather than the peer-to-peer network that they had. Both the Netware and Windows 98 computers were replaced by the SBS 2003 server and the shared folders on the Netware server were transferred to the SBS Server. The Netware 3 server was taken out of service. AC Appointments now benefit from a faster, newer and easily supported operating system.
A broadband Internet connection was arranged for AC Appointments which allows Shadowfax to provide remote IT support using the Remote Desktop for Administration feature of SBS2003.
