Case Studies
Full Support Client Restructured Their Business and Doubled in Size
A Full Support client in EC2 London conducted a complete restructuring of their business setup, creating a 2 company structure working closely together, doubling the headcount at their offices. They took the opportunity to boost their IT infrastructure, and asked London Data to identify the key areas where their investment would benefit the most and carry out the required work.
Firstly, a leased line internet connection was installed, providing our client with a dedicated ad stable internet connection, something that is hard to come by in Central London.
Next, a state-of-the-art backup solution was implemented using Microsoft DPM, removing the need for backup tapes and giving full accessibility to files up to 10 versions back and capture and keep emails for a set number of days. This incorporates a failsafe Disaster Recovery solution protecting both companies’ data at all times.
Furthermore, new servers were installed with Windows Server 2008 Standard R2 providing the stability and manageability necessary when a company is reliant on IT. We set up servers for the new company and upgraded the existing company’s servers to ensure the clear division between the companies but at the same time maintaining the interoperability and benefits that come from two companies sharing office space. The setup of the servers included installing and configuring Microsoft Dynamics CRM, SQL Server 2008 Standard and Microsoft Exchange 2010, along with 2 brand new high-speed switches to accommodate the extra network access required.
Lastly, new workstations were set up with Windows 7, Office 2010 and the latest version of Sage Accounts, ensuring optimum compatibility with the servers.
This all-round upgrade took couple of months to complete, ensuring a smooth transition and least possible disruption to the employees. The new hardware has a life expectancy of 3-5 years meaning that our client should have minimal hardware expenditures for the foreseeable future. Our client now has a more manageable and secure IT infrastructure that offers a fast and stabile interface for the end users.
Disaster Recovery Planning
Disasters do happen, and we’re not talking about earthquakes or epidimic outbreaks of the plague, we’re talking about your data; your files, emails, and projects that you have spent hours and hours on, and that are essential to your business. They are all on your server, right? well, sometimes servers break, someone spills tea in it, there’s a flooding short circuiting your power supply, and yes, there could be a freak fire destroying your entire building.
If any of these happen, the impact on your business data and your ability to function as a business should be minimal, at least if you have a Disaster Recovery plan like the ones that London Data offers.
Your peace of mind
London Data gives you that peace of mind that your data is safe no matter what, and we can even make sure you can retrieve a single file if it is deleted or altered accidentally.
In short, we’d setup a double backup system, with a backup server in your office, and a backup server in a data centre. These two will work together in backing up your documents every 10 minutes, and your images, videos and sound files every night. The system will keep the ten most recent editions of a document, allowing you to go back in time and retrieve documents if necessary.
The off site backup server will create a complete image of your system, so in case of a fault, fire or frenzy, we can grab the server and get you back to business anywhere in the world within hours.
One setup fee, no maintenance required
Depending on the size of your business, the amount of data you have and how quickly you need a restoration, a Disaster Recovery plan only has a setup fee and can then run for app. three years without the need of maintenance or monthly support fees. If your data amount changes significantly minor adjustments may be required, but otherwise your DR solution should only need a checkup once every three years.
Call us on 0845 0041 600 or email support@london-data.co.uk to hear more.
Modernised IT Solution for International Charity
The headquarters of a truly international organisation, World Association of Girl Guides andGirl Scouts’ World Bureau in North London, works alongside several international offices to manage global guiding events, promotions and activities. The nature of the organisation underlines the importance of effective communication, filesharing, data security and overall system stability. London Data were invited to implement a modernised, centralised and standardised solution including a dedicated support technician on-site during office hours, as well as 2nd and 3rd line escalation routes.
The concept was to allow the offices access to a centralised store of data for accounting and membership applications to increase productivity and inter-site co-operation. With each network location working differently and with their own security concerns, a global policy needed to be designed and implemented to ensure the level of seamless connectivity and interoperability required by the World Bureau without compromising the integrity of the file system and working model.
The office spaces have been set up to interconnect through VPNs between local networks and remote workers can connect from all over the world to servers and workstations via terminal services. Guest computer terminals on site have been segregated and locked down to prevent un-witting guest users from compromising mission critical data and services. We implemented a standardised security structure for users, passwords and access rights, and furthermore a centralised system for management of operating system maintenance and virus/malware protection from our central London location, affording the organisation the comfort of a well-managed and supported IT environment.
Data Restoration
Civil Society Media, formerly Plaza Publishing, is a specialist publishing house that produces magazines, websites and bespoke research projects within the civil society – charity sector.After dramatic hardware failure (a failed hard disk controller) left their communications, application sand therefore their business crippled, London Data were asked to get the company’s IT back on its feet after previous oversights in disaster recovery management meant that there were significant gaps in the restoration plan. After eventually restoring and recreating the servers and network to full working order we were asked to managetheir systems and ensure this never happened again.
Working within the budget of the organisation, the accepted proposal was precise and efficient without sacrificing the security of the data or stability and viability of the IT system. The existing network was not out-dated or under specification and in fact only small changes to the server hardware was required.The final solution was multifaceted, including creating multiple state of the art back-up sets in order to simplify and accelerate any necessary restoration in the future. Automatic fail-safes have been employed such as disk mirroring and the setting up of secondary servers to handle DNS and DHCP, so in the event of primary services being unreachable the system behind kicks in.
A second internet connection has also been installed to allow users to access WAN resources independently of the exchange connection, and hot spares of critical server components have been made available and are kept on site so that they can be installed within a few moments.Implementation of remote monitoring tools enables us to keep track of how much hard disk space is available or how fast the internet connections are and target individual services and applications to provide London Data with an early warning system so granular that we can detect a problem and even fix it before Civil Society notices.
Windows Recovery Malware
At London Data we have noticed an insurgence of drive-by-downloads of so called antivirus solutions for Windows 7, Vista and XP. These come in many guises but the most common will appear as a pop-up when visiting a website before ‘scanning’ your PC for malicious software. At this point if you are very vigilant and quick you can get out of this process by simply clicking the close button on the window – no harm no foul. However if you are unfortunate enough to have this scan complete and then attempt to remove these ‘malicious’ items (which are in fact nothing more than made up names) this rogue software installs itself on your system and all but cripples your computer.
Symptoms vary from preventing any applications running and warning you again and again that your system is infected to changing all your file attributes to ‘hidden’ so it appears the non-existent plethora of malware that this utility claims to have detected have deleted all of your files. Whatever it tries to do its main goal is to panic you in to buying the software – therefore getting your credit/debit card details. Not good news. Even worse is that these little nasties seem to be very adept at bypassing even the most adept of virus protection suites, it seems that as they do not self-propagate in the way that is expected of modern malware it slips through the net of most zero day threat detection algorithms… sneaky…
However, these can be removed with a little patience and a lot of cunning by simply using the tools that are available to you as standard with Microsoft Windows XP, Vista and 7. You may have noticed your operating system installing something called the Malicious Software Removal Tool once a month, and believe it or not Microsoft really seems to have hit the nail on the head with this one. Called by running the rather comforting ‘mrt’ command from a command prompt it scans your system much like a normal AV system, but like Mr.T seems to do so with much more aggression and success.
In short, if you are hit with one of these viruses the first thing I would recommend trying is a quick boot in to safe mode, clear your startup group and add a shortcut to mrt.exe in to that folder. Reboot in to normal mode and Mr T will run before the malware allowing you to get in there and clean it out before it starts denying you access to your programs. If you still find you are stuck, drop us a line at support@london-data.co.uk and one of our experts will be glad to help.
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