The Wine Society had gone through a period of underinvestment in its IT functionality – its infrastructure and systems had therefore become outdated and in some cases at the end of life. An organic approach to its IT architecture had resulted in platforms and systems that were increasingly slow and unreliable and took immense effort to maintain. There had also been no strategic approach to design, and a lack of control over change, resulting in inconsistency.
Prodec was therefore invited to perform a network audit and review of infrastructure, and subsequently made both tactical and strategic recommendations for improvement.
To strengthen the organisation’s network, resolve the issues that it was experiencing and to future-proof the business, Prodec recommended and implemented a range of innovative, inter-related solutions. Central to these was the fact that the current network hardware, at the organisation’s headquarters, was declared to be end-of-life and end-of-support equipment, which meant that if any hardware issues occurred, or any support requirements arose, the company would not be able to fall back on the manufacturer for assistance.
A new, enterprise-grade Cisco Systems network was therefore designed and installed across the organisation, with internal connectivity upgraded to include diverse, single-mode fibre, routed to each of the internal switch cabinets, providing redundancy for both connectivity and hardware.
The Wine Society’s existing wide area network (WAN) connections were also upgraded to dual leased lines, using diverse suppliers, to ensure resilience and redundancy, provide higher speeds, when needed, and generally improve performance. A new network management tool – SolarWinds – was also installed, providing greater visibility, enabling performance monitoring and supplying alerts to any potential issues. This allowed both the organisation and Prodec’s support team to proactively monitor The Wine Society’s network and address any issues before they became a problem.
In addition, the security of The Wine Society’s network was not overlooked, as an essential element of today’s IT infrastructure. To provide robust protection from cyber threats, Prodec’s firewall as a service (FWaaS) was employed, supplying a strong security perimeter for the organisation’s IT environment.
As a result of the work carried out by Prodec, The Wine Society’s IT issues have been addressed, and it now has a reliable, resilient network, plus the peace of mind that it is protected from potential IT security threats with state-of-the-art technology.
The organisation also has much greater visibility of its network, than it had before, and an IT provider that it can work in partnership with. With access to Prodec’s outstanding 24/7/365 support and onsite engineering, as required, it can rest assured that it will now have prompt, high-quality assistance, whenever needed.
Consequently, Prodec was delighted to hear that The Wine Society was very happy with the service it has been receiving, and actively welcomed the chance to voice its satisfaction in this case study.
