Proactive HR Case Study

Business Challenge
Proactive HR supply both contract and permanent HR staff across the UK and Europe with minimal lead times and understand the need for quality delivery. Proactive HR are a SME which has recently seen dramatic growth. Marcus Glover (MD) commented that "We were growing quickly and to manage this growth I needed an effective and efficient IT system that would grow with my business whilst keeping ongoing costs to a minimum.”

Proactive HR also required a solid backup solution which would not only enable archiving of historical data but facilitate a disaster recovery solution. Providing a desktop to new employees was also high priority, and the brief was to make the solution secure, manageable and scalable, enabling access from anywhere.

Virtualisation Solution
Proactive HR partnered with Vcentral and were introduced to the concept of virtualisation. After the introduction and initial live demonstration of the technologies, the benefits were obvious: "Virtualisation was the answer to my problems, it would provide a resilient system that would grow without additional hardware costs. Plus, I get reliable, easy backups as well as a disaster recovery. If my IT systems failed and we were offline for any period of time, the financial impact would be significant. Without a workable disaster recovery plan my business could go under very quickly." (Marcus Glover, MD).

As specialists in virtualisation Vcentral were able to design the optimal solution, using VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3 at the core. Backups are quick and reliable with zero system downtime thanks to Vizioncore’s esxRanger. Single files can be restored as well as full servers, facilitating a full system recovery at a contingency site should a disaster occur. The ideal of not only local, but remote secure desktop access became a reality with Citrix, virtualised and optimised on VMware. Thin clients from Chip PC are installed at the desktop, delivering significant savings on management, administration, power and up front capital outlay when compared to traditional PC’s.

Business Results
VMware allowed Proactive HR to achieve not only server consolidation but server containment, providing enough capacity for the next 3 years growth and eliminating the need for new hardware. New servers can be easily created in minutes, rather than days whilst leveraging the existing investment.

Proactive HR has a reliable backup solution producing daily backup reports, bringing reassurance to an area normally surrounded by uncertainty. Accommodating new employees is no longer an issue when it comes to hardware, by simply plugging in a Chip PC thin client the user can be up and running in minutes without any configuration or installation work. Since Citrix provides the centralised desktop no data ever leaves the data centre, essential in an environment where data security is critical. A Citrix desktop facilitated remote working initiatives enabling access from anywhere with an internet connection. “Having remote access allows us to securely access all our files, email and critical systems whilst away from the office” (Marcus Glover, MD).

When asked whether Proactive HR would use Vcentral again: "Absolutely, working with Vcentral has been a refreshing experience. (Marcus Glover, MD).