Restaurants

SR Group runs several restaurants in one of San Diego’s bustling tourist and nightlife districts.

Challenges

Design Network Audit and Upgrade Plan

SR Group’s network was dated, based on Windows NT and Netware servers, and they wanted SpotLink® to develop an upgrade and migration plan. They also needed SpotLink® to work with the existing Aloha Restaurant Management software configuration, which used an antiquated dial-up modem.

 

Solution

SpotLink® did a comprehensive audit of the existing network to evaluate what needed to be upgraded, what could be saved, and what needed to be migrated. They compiled a Network Audit and Upgrade Plan – a report fully detailing SR Group’s current network, the planned network, and the method SpotLink® would use to make the transitions between the two. This document detailed computer names, software products, security groups, security policies, email addresses, file system organization, IP address design, Internet connectivity, and remote access.

Devise Economically Priced Upgrades

In 2007, SR Group asked SpotLink® to switch to a plan to maintain instead of completely upgrading the network until the economy improved.

 

Solution

To save SR Group money, SpotLink® shifted to a maintenance strategy. Doing this economically was not simple because the hardware was over 10 years old. SpotLink® ordered spare parts from secondary markets and performed periodic inspections of their RAID and other system components to keep them in excellent working condition, replacing suspect equipment before it caused operational problems.

In early 2012, with an upswing in business, SR Group decided to move forward with the Network Migration. SpotLink® revised the Network Audit and Upgrade Plan to adjust to recent changes in technology and the network, putting together a cost-effective plan appropriate for SR Group’s business.

One of the major challenges was updating the high-end account program software, which was nearly 10 years out of date. To upgrade the program to a current version would have cost over $20,000, so instead SpotLink® worked with a local CPA who specialized in accounting system migrations, and they converted the business to QuickBooks for much less money, all while retaining a full transaction history.

SR Group is now using a hybrid on-premise/cloud solution for their IT needs; a model that SpotLink® designed and should work for SR Group for another 10 years.

Rapid Response to Major System Failures

Six months after RY Corp’s storage server was launched, the server went offline in the middle of the night. In less than an hour, SpotLink® was onsite assessing the situation. The news was not good: the RAID system was showing multiple simultaneous disk failures.

Later that day the server went offline another time, again reporting multiple disk failures. Often, with multiple disk failures, there is little chance of recovering data. Realizing the scope of the issue, the HP tech called in his supervisor. 

Solution

The fact the RAID system was showing multiple simultaneous disk failures seemed unbelievable. Yet within the hour, two SpotLink® engineers and three HP technicians were onsite, all working to resolve the issue. The HP techs arrived with spare parts and replaced drives and the RAID controller.

SpotLink® immediately started a full system restoration to save files and data. By morning, the critical files were restored, with the rest of the files following. In the end, HP replaced the entire server with a new server and drives, which performed flawlessly thereafter. What might have been devastating turned out to be just an inconvenience.

results

“We were impressed with the detail that SpotLink® put in to documenting of our systems and migration planning,” recalls Mike, CEO of SR Group. “They obviously had done this many times before and knew how to make the upgrade process extremely smooth and organized.”