Benefits: Cost, culture and morale
SteelFusion allows Hilson Moran to virtualize remote physical servers into the main data center. All remote data and applications are now controlled centrally, meaning branch IT can be scaled up and down when needed, without the need for remote IT staff. And all of this is accomplished while optimizing application performance for users at each site.
“Thanks to the Riverbed solution, stage one of our 10-year plan is now complete,” says Beckford.
“With Riverbed SteelFusion, Hilson Moran’s IT infrastructure is now centralized at the London head office. The Riverbed solution has positively impacted cost, culture and morale.”
“In terms of network efficiency, we were paying £250,000 ($310,400) for a 5mb line into the Qatar office – around the same price as the 100mb we need for the whole of the UK,” he says. “It’s early days, but it looks like we’re only using 20% of our bandwidth.”
“We have a fantastic relationship with Riverbed. It doesn’t feel like a working relationship, it has been a partnership. The Riverbed team has shown an interest in what we’re trying to achieve overall, and at every stage, they’ve looked to help. It was the first time a third party had delivered what they had promised, on time, to budget and ahead of expectations.” – Lee Beckford, Head of IT, Hilson Moran
With a zero-branch IT set-up, energy and air conditioning costs will also be lower. The Manchester office is due to relocate in 2017, when there will be less floor space needed for IT, freeing more space
for client services. This also leads to savings on procuring, supporting and maintaining branch IT.
In the future, new branch set up can be smaller,
and IT will be quicker to provision.
“As a business, we’re now even more secure,
more agile and more flexible,” Beckford states. “Riverbed enables us to backup between sites, using a couple of Network Attached Storage boxes. We’d budgeted £60,000 ($74,500) for backup and we’re probably only spending £5,000 ($6,200).
Data security is critical, he adds: “Many of the tenders we’re going for require us to have a robust approach to security - for example, Building Information Modelling level 2, where it’s unacceptable for les to be stored locally on a laptop.”
Now, Hilson Moran employees can send and access les held centrally. “Staff can work out of the office, on site, with a client. We can move data faster,
and with more resilience,” says Hilson Moran CFO Roger Waters-Duke.
“Even in locations with thin broadband, SteelHead Mobile allows staff to access the les they need. Any actions made on site or with a client can then be actioned back in the office. Centralization enabled by SteelFusion means we’re all working off the latest les.”
This immediately improves client work – and Hilson Moran’s ability to bring the right specialists into projects, when they’re needed. “We have core skills, but it may be that we need to bring in specialists in acoustics or re protection or vertical transport,” says Beckford. “It is far easier to collaborate, and create flexible project teams, with a strong network. We can be more agile in the way we address projects.”
Essentially, Hilson Moran applications now perform better. SteelFusion centralizes all of the company data, while eliminating infrastructure dependencies at remote sites, and still delivering optimal application performance for users wherever they may be in the world.
For instance, the Riverbed solution optimizes traffic from the Microsoft Exchange servers. For end users, this means when they open their email, messages are displayed quickly, rather than taking a long time to download which improves productivity.
Finance, security and application performance aside, Beckford says the biggest impact has been among the IT team. “The engagement with Riverbed and support from Zycko means we are better able to support the Middle East offices and other users, which has freed up a huge amount of time.
“We’re better able to support the business on new projects – and commit to delivery deadlines. In particular, we have the time to figure out the business benefit of any IT project. There is no point implementing something that doesn’t bene t our business.”
This last point is key to Beckford’s long-term strategy. Implementing the combination of SteelHead and SteelFusion has produced clear business benefits; in addition, it has demonstrated to the Hilson Moran board that the IT team can deliver a major IT project on time and to budget. This makes it easier to make the case for further investment.
“We have a fantastic relationship with Riverbed.
It doesn’t feel like a working relationship, it has been a partnership. The Riverbed team has shown an interest in what we’re trying to achieve overall, and at every stage, they’ve looked to help. It was the first time a third party had delivered what they had promised, on time, to budget and ahead of expectations.
“We’re looking at more remote working, device refreshes, becoming a paperless office and greater use of the cloud,” says Beckford. “The successful completion of stage one of our 10-year strategy, with the support of Riverbed, gives us a platform on which to build.”
English (AU)
