Case Study: MSP Reduces Impact of Disaster
Even a fire can’t halt the pace of business for BriteStar customers
A disaster of any kind can take down a business in minutes. Before the digital age, physical damage to a business’s operations was the main concern. Now, as companies have become more reliant on IT infrastructure, damage to digital assets or disrupting access to those assets can be just as detrimental if not more. Proper planning and mature IT operations can greatly reduce the impact of disaster.
While both physical and virtual damage from disasters like fires and floods are inevitable, implementing proactive services beforehand can help ease the recovery period and minimize the business impact. Brite’s managed service offering, BriteStar, combines superior people, process and technology to support companies and help manage the entire IT infrastructure. BriteStar offloads day-to-day operations and provides the ability to quickly recover from catastrophic events.
“Our BriteStar team is built off the principle that proactive support mitigates the majority of reactive needs,” said John Marzano, Network Operation Center Manager. “We always prepare for the worst so when the worst comes, it isn’t detrimental to the flow of our client’s business.”
A Fire Engulfs Golf and Racquet Club’s Clubhouse and Offices
Rochester-based Golf and Racquet Club, Shadow Lake, offers everything from golf to fine dining and special events. Open year-round, the club serves as a premier event space, hosting more than 500 events per year, and serves lunch and dinner every day.
On Monday, October 29, 2018, club General Manager, Ryan Kunzer was wrapping up the lunch rush when the fire alarm went off. While investigating, he discovered that a piece of kitchen equipment malfunctioned, igniting a fire in the kitchen. All management offices and physical IT were housed above the kitchen. As the fire spread from the kitchen they were also soon engulfed in flames.
“All the insulation had to be replaced in the entire facility, especially [in the upper offices]. The drywall had to be redone…. [Firefighters] jumped in the window and caused them to smash through my desk. We had to order all new furniture to get settled,” Kunzer described.
The fire, smoke and water damage destroyed all of the IT in the management offices and the server room, including phones, computers, cabling and servers, causing a significant business impact from the disaster.
Proactive BriteStar Recovery and Support
During the fire and from the Network Operations Center 24/7 monitoring tools, the BriteStar team saw abnormalities in the IT environment and recognized there was an issue. At about the same time, they heard the news of the fire. Marzano immediately reached out to Kunzer to see how the Brite team could help.
“John actually reached out to me first to get the ball rolling. I was pretty overwhelmed at the time on where to even begin,” Kunzer recalled.
“We had no office phones at the time… People were contacting us via Facebook and the website [for information on upcoming private events]. Computers to access to the outside world was pretty important to our ability to communicate.”
Since the majority of the infrastructure was damaged, the first step was to set up a temporary office in the pro shop with the right equipment – phones, computers and WiFi.
“John arranged it all. He ordered new computers for everybody. Their team helped us set up a new home in the pro shop for all our management. It was one of the few areas that was not affected [by the fire]”, stated Kunzer. Within a few days, the team received new computers and could resume business operations in the temporary office. Because of Brite’s disaster recovery practices, all data was backed up in the cloud. To resume operations, the techs simply loaded Office365 with OneDrive onto the laptops and restored data to the machines.
As a best practice, Detailed Network Diagrams are created during the BriteStar onboarding process. These were critical during the move into the newly renovated office space. Once the space was ready, Brite easily recreated the previous infrastructure by referring to the detailed documentation. The BriteStar team transitioned the temporary infrastructure and built out the new server room to coincide with the team’s move-in.
“To be honest, I couldn’t be happier with what Brite offers and the timeliness of service. You hear the expression “You feel the love from a company” and I do with Brite.”
