Marcum Technology Helps Regional Food Stores Migrate to the Cloud
Although I rarely write to our vendor partners, I felt compelled to do so after working with Marcum Technology for the last year. The way the team methodically approached assessing our current environment, understanding our short- and long-term goals and creating a detailed plan to help us reach our strategic objectives was a breath of fresh air. The team was professional, clearly communicated potential risks, and kept us in the loop the entire way. Additionally, the team was always available for questions or escalations, from the VP to the project manager to the engineer. They were always supportive and able to overcome any roadblocks along the way. Today we rely on Marcum for our Managed IT support needs around the clock and we couldn’t be happier.
— Chief Financial Officer
ABOUT THE CLIENT
The client is located in Bellerose, NY, and is part of the grocery stores & supermarkets industry. It has 600 employees across all locations and generates $72.91 million in sales (USD). There are 12 companies in the client’s corporate family.
THE CHALLENGE
Having outgrown its current IT infrastructure and looking for ways to utilize technology to help drive business towards improved productivity and efficiency, the client was seeking a go-to partner that could modernize and secure its IT organization.
THE GOAL
Our client sought to achieve three critically important strategic IT objectives:
- Stabilize the IT environment and ensure the capacity for future growth.
- Build an infrastructure that allows for remote computing.
- Engage an IT provider capable of supporting, monitoring and managing all aspects of the IT environment, enabling the client to focus on its day-to-day business.
THE PROCESS
Marcum performed a thorough assessment of the entire IT environment to understand the current state of the client’s technology systems, with an eye towards future computing needs, stability and growth. Once completed, the Marcum team worked collaboratively with the client to design the right solutions to meet current and future needs:
Stabilize the IT environment and ensure the capacity for future growth.
To address the company’s infrastructure needs, Marcum’s team migrated and upgraded the client’s virtual systems from aging, on-premise hardware to an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solution, while ensuring that current and future computer and storage needs were met.
Build a stable infrastructure that allows for remote computing.
To ensure the client’s workforce had the ability to securely work remotely, Marcum migrated the company from an aging, on-premise mail server to a cloud-based Windows 365 with Office solution, which included advanced threat protection. This provides the client’s users with an added layer of security, allowing employees to securely work from anywhere. Lastly, to ensure business continuity in the event of a disaster or business interruption, Marcum migrated the client’s data from an on-premise file service to a cloud-based Office 365 SharePoint site.
Engage an IT provider capable of supporting, monitoring and managing all aspects of the IT environment, enabling the client to focus on its day-to-day business.
Marcum Technology’s Service Desk now supports the client’s day-to-day operations while monitoring and managing its new environment on a 24x7x365 basis. This ensures the client never has to worry about undetected equipment failure in the middle of the night or having to keep up with operating system and security patches.
THE SOLUTION
As a result of these initiatives, the client achieved the following:
Stability with on-demand scalability.
Marcum’s IaaS now provides this growing company with a stable IT infrastructure that’s easily scalable to accommodate future growth. Additionally, the client now has the ability to increase storage space and computing power on demand, ensuring maximum capacity during short-term bursts of traffic and long-term expansion projects.
Savings with a more predictable cost model.
With the removal of on-premise hardware, the client was able to realize significant cost savings. Owning and operating on-premise data storage equipment comes with high upfront costs and consistent overhead, which can eat into a company’s IT budget. By moving the data, applications, and computing processes to the cloud, the client eliminated the need for on-site hardware and expensive data center facilities.
Additionally, by moving to subscription computing models, the client was able to avoid significant capital expenditures while reaping the benefits of more predictable monthly operating expenses. Microsoft Azure’s consumption-based pricing structure allows the client to better manage its IT budgets and leverage only the specific cloud features they need. This model is highly effective for decreasing infrastructure costs, reducing the burden placed on in-house IT management, and streamlining cross-departmental workflows. If issues arise, the client’s users are backed by Marcum Technology’s 24-hour support team.
High availability and redundancy.
The client has realized additional benefits by their migration to the cloud. The Microsoft cloud provides high availability and redundancy across all of its data centers. Microsoft is able to offer a service-level agreement that ensures 99.95% availability, which amounts to under 4.5 hours of downtime per year.
Secure remote computing.
The client’s workforce now has the ability to securely work from anywhere with an internet connection. Because it’s entirely cloud-based, the client’s users can access their email, files and Office programs (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) from any location and any device. The move to the cloud also enhanced employees’ collaborative abilities and enabled greater productivity by providing: 1) much greater search functionality, 2) complete access from anywhere, 3) version history and backup, and 4) access control and security.
With access to a team of subject matter experts who provide regular reporting and quarterly business reviews, the ability to scale computing power as needed, the reduction of operational risk, the flexibility of being able to work from anywhere at any time, and the peace of mind that comes with knowing the IT environment is always patched and monitored around the clock, the client is now confident that its IT infrastructure monitoring, management and support needs are well in hand.