Mayo Wynne Baxter

Background

Serval Systems initially undertook a discrete IT suppport task for Wynne Baxter in 2002 and, by the end of 2003, Mayo Wynne Baxter had commissioned Serval Systems to take on the control and IT support of their four sites with around 150 users. Provision of computer services was at that time based on Windows NT with all sites operating servers and responsible for their own data security

This was felt to be overly cumbersome to support as well as fairly unreliable. Desktop support was a particular issue.

A proven long term solution

Serval created a design that allowed for centralisation of all data to the Brighton head office, backed up by a disaster recovery location in Lewes. The requirement to roll out digital dictation to all four offices was also addressed.

The Solution

A Terminal Services farm enhanced with Citrix Application Server was established in the data centre at Brighton together with Windows 2003 domain and mail services. Core business applications, together with Bighand digital dictation servers, were then added.

Branch connectivity was upgraded to provide a very reliable WAN environment across the branches. The remote locations were equipped with XP embedded Wyse thin client devices. The thin client had modifications developed in association with Bighand and Wyse. This allowed the use of Total Speech digital dictation flexibly across all locations without the use of local PCs.

2003 to 2010 – 7 years and fantastic ROI

The IT Solution Serval developed for Mayo Wynne Baxter proved its value over its life, reducing the cost of support and almost removing the need for desktop maintenance.

This period of time saw a massive expansion of systems usage with the business merging and many other changes including the doubling of systems users. As you would expect from a well designed system the infrastructure supplied by Serval took all this in its stride.

2010 and time for an upgrade

With this successful track record Serval Systems was commissioned to upgrade the system once more and so a fresh view was taken of the requirements in order to take the business forward.

Mayo Wynne Baxter was keen to retain the exceptional remote working capability already provided but was ambitious to use more advance email management functions available in Exchange 2010. Mayo’s needed to upgrade to the latest operating systems platform which supported newer applications including core product upgrades. It was also requested that, as a valued and trusted partner, Serval take on all remaining internal IT functions and host the new system.

The new system supporting VOIP over the wide area network was built using virtualisation technology to maximise return on investment and reduce the Server count. The system is based on the same thin client framework, but in a high availability cluster supported by mirrored ISCSI SANs.

All IT functions are now outsourced to Serval Systems with the new system hosted in the Serval Systems Data Centre. Mayo Wynne Baxter’s successful partnership with Serval Systems continues to give them a clear business advantage.