Case Study: Network Assessment

Case Study

Network
Assessment

The situation

Electrical contractor blows a fuse.

The company had built a reputation for outstanding work, serving a growing customer base in the southeast. It maintained offices in a number of cities, connected by a dedicated network.

When the Charlotte office landed a huge contract for a new stadium, the project generated massive engineering-related files that needed to be transferred quickly across the network. Since some of these files climbed into the hundreds of megabytes, network performance dragged. Frustration was high.

The challenge

Not so fast.

The company’s outside IT provider recommended a costly expansion of bandwidth across the network. The investment did not improve performance. They called us in to take a look.

Network Assessment Success in 4 simple steps:

1

Gather knowledge of the present network

2

Identify weaknesses and strengths

3

Compile recommendations to resolve problems and enhance performance

4

Provide recommendations for cost control and operational savings

Increase in network performance:

300%

The solution

A little digging uncovers the real problem.

Our team approached the problem with no preconceptions. We used our tools and expertise to inspect everything—including things that might have been overlooked before. We uncovered bottlenecks at just a few junctures that were jamming the entire network.

A few obsolete switches were gumming up the works. We replaced those; we put in a couple of new servers; and our software team fixed a load-balancing problem.

“Our IT specialist uncovered the load balance problems, replaced the servers and increased their network performance by 300%”

DQ Engineer

The results

Response time—and spending—dropped dramatically.

The backlog vanished. Response time went from 2 weeks to 2 hours. Spending was cut by 40%. With such clear ROI, the company asked us to take on their Level 2 service desk tasks, too.

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