Case Studies

Managed IT Support

Business: Die Cutting and Finishing Systems Manufacturer
Location: Libertyville, IL
Number of computers on network: 45
Numbers of servers on network: 6

Problem: Client had a long time full-time in-house IT manager who was taking the company for granted, showing up late for work, leaving early and “working from home”. The network was unstable and a long list of unresolved IT issues was building up. The company’s staff was getting frustrated with management because the computer network was interfering with them to accomplish their jobs. The IT manager had no formal training and had learned her skills on the job. The cost of the IT manager to the company was $9,000/month in wages, taxes and benefits.

Solution: Xerillion provided a dedicated level 3 IT tech that provided all management and IT support to the client. The client had a single point of contact for all IT issues and total accountability since the tech work and managed all IT issues. The tech came onsite 4 hours a day 3 times a week. The cost to the company was $6,000/month.

Conclusion: The client reduced their IT support labor costs by a third while vastly increasing the level of support to the company’s staff. Within 2 weeks the list of outstanding IT issues was resolved and the tech fixed the issues that was causing the network instability. Further, since the company was working with Xerillion, they felt good knowing they always had a backup tech when their main tech was on vacation or should that tech get ill.

Managed IT Support

Business: Physical Therapy Clinic
Location: Chicago, IL (Loop)
Number of computers on network: 12
Numbers of servers on network: 1

Problem: Client had a managed service company charging them a fixed fee per month per computer with a total fixed cost of $1600/month. Initially this sounded great, until they realized the quality of support they were getting was from low level techs with limited experience. Access to higher level 3 tech was very limited. The IT company made money when support was provided by lesser qualified technicians, not from more expensive higher level technicians.

Solution: Xerillion proposed a monthly service plan with a dedicated tech which would visit once per month for 4 hours at a cost of $500. The tech was a highly qualified, certified computer network engineer that could solve any possible problem they had. The tech provided on single point of contact and accountability. The client also appreciated the onsite face to face time with the tech.

Conclusion: The client reduced their IT support costs by 2/3rds and increased the quality of their tech.

Virtualization

Business: Financial Service Firm
Location: Chicago, IL (River North)
Number of computers: 14
Number of servers: 6

Problem: Client had server different important applications related to their financial service business running on 6 different physical computers which was expensive and not easy to maintain. Also, the client didn’t have a disaster recovery plan. When it came time to upgrade some of the servers, the client became concerned about the cost of upgrading 6 different physical servers.

Solution: Xerillion virtualized the 6 physical servers into 2 physical servers each running 3 different virtual servers using Microsoft Hyper-V – which was free. Now, the client could move the virtual servers from physical server to physical server in the event of an emergency or even to perform maintenance during the business day without affecting productivity. The client saved $20,000 in hardware/software/service costs by switching to virtual servers and the company has all the same computing resources they had before as well as a disaster recovery plan.

Managed Hosting

Business: Housing Relocation Firm
Location: Lisle, IL
Number of computers: 8
Numbers of servers: 1

Problem: Client had a server but wanted to not deal with having their server onsite, or even an IT infrastructure in their office. They wanted their IT to be a flat rate expense.

Solution: Xerillion virtualized the server at their office and connected everyone by VPN to their server which was hosted at our datacenter. Xerillion provided a dedicated tech to their account who took all of their calls. The client no longer had the headache of managing a computer network, yet had full-control of their data and IT infrastructure. Xerillion handled the maintenance, backups and support. The client will always retain the ability to take their virtual server off our system and move it anywhere they want – it is their server. The client got rid of managing their network at a cost of $125/computer/month and $250/month for the server, for a flat rate of $1,250

SharePoint

Business: Manufacturer Sales Rep
Location: Tinley Park, IL
Number of computers: 15
Number of servers: 1

Problem: Client needed a very easy way to share and manage documents across their company. The client was mostly comprised of a sales force that was located in 6 different states. The company was routinely creating many Word, Excel and PowerPoint and PDF documents that needed to be easily searched, and revisions managed. The biggest need of all though was that the documents needed to be easily accessible with the end users doing as little as possible to securely connect to the network.

Solution: Xerillion implemented Microsoft SharePoint – which is free. Xerillion moved all documents into SharePoint, created folders and special workspaces for the sales staff to work on documents together, share information and manage revisions. All of these documents were not easily available by a web browser - no VPN was needed, and all data between the user’s web browser and the corporate office was encrypted. Users could easily search documents, download, upload and check out documents so that others didn’t make changes until the user checked the document back in.

Conclusion: The client had no software cost, and $400 worth if IT service time to greatly improved the efficiency of the sales staff to communicate and work on documents together. Instead of trying to remember folder names and searching through folders on a file server and not knowing if the version they had was current or not, the users were now easily doing searches to find their documents on a web interface and could see which version was the latest and if anyone was working on it. None of the users needed any special software or IT support to connect securely to the corporate network.