Date: 20/11/2007

MJ Flood Technology Builds Bridges to Walls Construction

MJ Flood Technology,a leading provider of network infrastructure solutions, today announced a €400,000 IT investment by Walls Construction Limited, formerly known as PJ Walls, to upgrade the company’s 225-user network and security infrastructure. By standardising client/server software, eliminating unsolicited spam and backing up the company’s critical data online, staff enjoy a more stable, secure and efficient desktop experience, whether office-based or at one of Walls’ many project sites around the country.

“This latest infrastructure upgrade represents a continuation of our efforts to further streamline communications and deliver the type of IT services which will ultimately lead to more efficient project completion and better business performance,” according to Robbie Armstrong, IT manager with Walls. “Our company has a very progressive attitude to technology and we are to the forefront of our industry sector in using it to drive our business forward. IT systems already implemented have a Return on Investment of less than 18 months,” he adds.

Software standardisation

All servers, desktops and laptops now have a common version of Microsoft’s XP Operating System and Microsoft Office, providing improved desktop management. The email platform has been upgraded to Exchange 2007 SP2 and this delivers enhanced functionality to mobile users in the form of push e-mail. Mobile users now enjoy instant delivery of all email communications to their handheld devices.

Exchange Hosted Services

With up to 46% of all email to Walls classified as spam, MJ Flood Technology’s technical team recommended implementation of an Exchange Hosted Service, as Gerry Reid, sales manager with MJ Flood Technology explains: “The hosted service can be set up in minutes via a simple MX record re-direct to a Microsoft data centre. Spam has been completely eliminated overnight with no false positives reported and spam-related calls to the IT helpdesk have become a thing of the past,” he adds.

Critical data backup

The most challenging element of the network upgrade was to find a suitable backup and recovery solution for the company’s email infrastructure. Much of Walls’ business revolves around the sharing of CAD drawings via email, some of which can be up to 50MB in size. Traditional backup to tape was taking as long as 20 hours to complete although the IT department only had a backup window of 8 hours. “We recommended an online backup solution involving an initial 250GB of primary and secondary storage,” says Gerry Reid. “This offers Walls more stability and far easier management of the email infrastructure. The backup is performed each evening and as a managed service, staff at our Network Operations Centre will immediately resolve any technical issues and ensure that the backup is performed in full.”

ERP application rollout

To facilitate delivery of Walls’ mission-critical line of business application (Summit) to multiple sites in Dublin and Cork, a Citrix upgrade was implemented. “This provides full control over 225 desktops through one single interface, allowing us to standardise all application delivery,” says Robbie Armstrong. “Staff can also instantly print CAD drawings and get on with the business in hand, irrespective of location and without any application constraints.”

“We chose MJ Flood Technology as they are really prepared to go the extra mile for their clients,” says Robbie Armstrong. “Their sales and technical teams are extremely flexible in their business approach and very responsive to our needs,” he adds.

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