Challenge:

A Legal Services Client, with hundreds of attorneys on staff, were left facing serious challenges after 2 senior members of their IT group left in quick succession. Leading day-to-day administration of IT infrastructure services was extremely difficult, with both engineers having been at the firm for over 15 years and little documentation left behind. Also gone was the understanding of why things were setup the way they had been. With the remaining IT group unable to provide the depth of answers to the many questions asked, the ability of any incoming vendor to quickly settle in and gain an overall view and level of comfort to help any transition to potential new staff was greatly impaired. WPG Consulting were asked by Executive Management to come in and provide consulting and help create a viable, long-lasting solution to avoid such situations from occurring again.

Solution:

WPG initially performed a thorough assessment and created detailed documentation of the network, security and VoIP infrastructure, and conducted workshops with key technical and business stakeholders across the organization to really understand the business, it’s dependencies on mission-critical applications, and how they pertained to the server and storage environments both on-prem, cloud and other vendor integrations. Along with the technical assessment, a quick-to-perform lifecycle inventory and audit report was put together for the various hardware and software components that needed attention. Once WPG’s initial budget proposal had been reviewed and approved, collaboratively with the client, WPG designed a bill-of-materials and professional services solution for the replacement of Core Switch pair, and all Server, Storage and Security devices as they were either fast approaching, or already past, manufacturer support milestone dates. WPG seamlessly implemented the solution which increased performance, provided redundancy to mission critical components and enabled consistent reliable back-up using best-in-class products. With that being successful, WPG were awarded a multi-year, 24x7, proactive monitoring & management of the environment, giving the client the day-to-day support they need whenever required, and freeing up their time to focus on strategic business planning. 

Contributors: Tom G. & Hitesh P.