News

Atlanta Technology leads virtualisation and SAN migration for Mainstay Group

London, UK: Atlanta Technology, the IT solutions specialist, has today announced the successful migration to a fully virtualised IT infrastructure for Mainstay Group, the national property and facilities management company. 

The successful completion sees Mainstay Group move from 12 physical servers at its headquarters in Worcester to two physical servers running 14 virtualised servers, providing immediate cost savings to the business, improved storage and a reduction in the firm’s carbon usage.

The migration project took just three months to complete, from scoping to completion, to enable Mainstay Group to meet its business objectives of installing a new Storage Area Network, in addition to upgrading its Human Resources and Payroll software by December. Atlanta Technology worked closely with Mainstay’s Head of IT and corporate projects, Phil Johns, to complete the migration to meet the imposed deadline.

Confirms Phil Johns: “There are a number of benefits of operating a virtualised infrastructure,notably the flexibility and scalability it provides. Our company is not afraid to bring new services quickly on board and so the IT must be flexible so we can respond to the company’s needs. Before the virtual network, we would have had to go through the process of manually reviewing the infrastructure and purchasing new hardware and software to support the growth plans. Now, within 15 minutes an additional virtual server can be brought online and ready for us to use.”

The VMware-based infrastructure also incorporates a new Storage Area Network from Dell Compellent, which currently provides Mainstay with a capacity of 9TB, which can easily be extended as the need requires.

Adds Phil Johns: “We decided to bring forward the virtualisation project by 12-months to coincide with the implementation of a new HR and payroll system. It would have meant purchasing at least two new physical servers and we felt it was better to invest our time and efforts instead into pressing forward with the virtualisation project to instead support this major software upgrade. The team at Atlanta Technology have been excellent at supporting us with this entire venture. They immersed themselves completely in our business to not only understand our current needs, but also the future direction and so have implemented the most future-proofed solution for us.

Concludes Phil Johns: “The decision to opt for a virtual network also ties in well with our green credentials. We are currently seeking the ISO14001 standard and the migration supports this by enabling us to benefit from a significant reduction in power usage and in turn, a decrease in our carbon footprint.”

Simon Kelson, Managing Director of Atlanta Technology added, “We are pleased to have been able to support Mainstay Group’s objectives of implementing a fully virtualised IT infrastructure within its three month deadline. 

We worked closely with the Group to understand exactly what its immediate needs were which included the installation of a new HR and payroll system plus the requirement of a new SAN. We also explored the longer-term objectives of the business and advised the Group accordingly of what we felt would suit its needs. We then worked hand-in-hand with the IT team at Mainstay to successfully roll-out the datacentre and SAN migration.”

For further information regarding Atlanta Technology, visit www.atlantatechnology.co.uk