NETWORK OVERHAUL CASE STUDY
CLIENT OVERVIEW
The client is based in Stoke on Trent and is a national supplier of vans and cars along with finance options throughout the UK, with independent offices in Manchester, Sheffield and more.
PROJECT INFO
- Date: July, 2017
- Category: Networking, Security, Servers
THE BRIEF
The client approached Blue Spot requiring a solution which would allow full management of their users and machines, dealing with customer financial data it is vital that things such as USB drive access and CD drive writing is not available to end users.
The client also required their remote branches to be able to connect to the same system in a manageable fashion from their external branches, along with a suitable managed antivirus solution for the 60+ devices on the network.
THE SOLUTION
After our initial assessment we agreed on a solution which worked best for the client, from both a management, support and saleability perspective.
A domain controller and exchange server were installed on-site to provide emails as well as manage the users and permissions side of things, using ‘Group policy’ it is possible to lock down local permissions – for example the use of USB ports and CD drives, stopping users from being able to remove data from the system.
An existing high-end Windows 10 machine on-site was recycled, upgraded to ‘RAID’ drives (mirrored for vulnerability protection) and used as an RDS server solution, this is a system which allows external users to login to the system using ‘remote desktop protocol’ and access their files on a machine actually in the head office. This system was restricted so that only IP addresses of external branches are able to connect.
AVAST Cloudcare managed antivirus solution was installed and rolled-out to all devices on the network at HQ and externally.
THE RESULTS
After installing a domain controller on-site and changing permission groups to suit relevant requirements, along with the installation of an exchange, RDS server and antivirus solution, the staff both locally and externally now have a fully functional, more secure network setup.
As part of the network overhaul, we fully tidied and re-organised the network cabinet, allowing internal networking changes to be made quickly and efficiently, minimizing client downtime.
