Case Study | Bluetowne - Information Technology Confidence

May 5, 2017

Taco Boy Partners with Bluetowne For Advanced Network Design and Ongoing Managed Services

“It is critically important to us to have a go to partner that answers when we pick up the phone to call them about a problem. Every time we contact Bluetowne – at any time of day or on the weekends – they respond. Bluetowne also takes a proactive approach to our relationship, making recommendations to constantly help our business progress. We place a lot of stock in that kind of value engineering, and know that we don’t just have a provider, but a partner for the long haul.” – Director of Operations | Owner, Taco Boy

THE CLIENT

Taco Boy is a local, authentic Taqueria/Cantina serving tacos with innovative fillings, frozen cocktails and other delicious menu items in a funky, vibrant setting. Taco Boy currently has two locations, with one on the upper peninsula in downtown Charleston, SC and the other on Folly Beach. A third location is currently in the works and slated to open soon in Summerville, SC.

THE CHALLENGE

Taco Boy is a fast-paced environment that serves a heavy volume of patrons at each of its locations, and downtime due to technology hiccups or waiting for an IT issue to be resolved is not an option, as it translates to frustration and lost revenue. Taco Boy knew they needed a partner with a reputation not only for innovative solutions that drive better business outcomes, but for remarkable customer service and lightening fast response times. Taco Boy also needed a solution to store, manage and back-up their critical data, and the ability to access this information from any location.Read More

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April 17, 2017

Lucey Law Firm Partners with Bluetowne to Modernize Infrastructure and Receive Ongoing Managed Services to Support Its End-Users

” After partnering with Bluetowne our productivity has greatly increased and we’re receiving better, more responsive support. It’s easier and more efficient to securely access critical information both in the office and while working remotely—whether from home in the evenings or from a courtroom in another city.” – Attorney, Lucey Law Firm

THE CLIENT

Lucey Law Firm was founded in 1991 and is located across from Shem Creek in Mount Pleasant, SC. The firm focuses on Plaintiffs’ lawsuits in Defective Construction, Contract and Financial Disputes, Special Torts and other trial work such as insurance claims, condemnations and legal malpractice. Lucey Law is proud to have achieved the largest construction verdicts and actual recoveries in the State of South Carolina for its clients. Additionally, the firm has successfully handled and/or tried to a verdict numerous other complex cases, yielding substantial recoveries to their clients.

THE CHALLENGE

Lucey Law’s current infrastructure had been pieced together over the years, and lack of a strategic design and best-in-class technologies was greatly affecting end-user productivity, flexibility and ease of management. The firm was also working with another local provider that was lacking in their response time and effectiveness in fixing the root cause of issues, which proved frustrating and time consuming. Lucey Law knew they needed a new partner who could provide strategic direction for their IT initiatives, modernize and streamline their infrastructure, and then support it with a high level of responsiveness and expertise.Read More

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Bluetowne Blog, Case Studies

February 6, 2017

Zinus, Inc. Partners with Bluetowne to Design, Configure and Deploy Wireless Infrastructure for New 460K sq. ft. US Distribution Center

“One of the reasons I chose Bluetowne is because they spent a lot of time on site understanding our infrastructure prior to winning the project. I wanted to partner with a company that actually cares about what they do—and with Bluetowne it was clear that they’re not just about selling services and moving on. I greatly value our ongoing relationship and the high level of responsiveness, and cannot tell you how much peace it gives me knowing Bluetowne will handle anything that comes along.” – Jerrin James, Head of Logistics and Supply Chain Operations, Zinus, Inc.

THE CLIENT

As the pioneers in comfort innovation, Zinus’ patented compressed and rolled mattresses were one of the first on the market, over 20 years ago. They have shipped millions of mattresses and beds through their major distributors that include Amazon, Wayfair, Target, Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart. With production in their own factory in Xiamen, China, corporate offices are located in Seoul, Korea with the US corporate office and distribution center in Northern California. Rapidly expanding and in need of an additional US distribution center, Zinus locked in 460K sq. ft. of warehouse and office space in Summerville, SC.

THE CHALLENGE

Zinus had a timeframe of two weeks to design, configure and deploy a wireless infrastructure across the 460K sq. ft. of high-volume warehouse and office space, and needed a partner that could execute swiftly and accurately. It was imperative that the wireless infrastructure could immediately support full operations on the specified go live date without any hiccups.

THE SOLUTION

Bluetowne meticulously conducted a wireless survey of the entire warehouse over multiple site visits, and delivered a design using best-in-class technologies that would support Zinus’ critical performance requirements. As part of the solution Bluetowne configured and installed 47 Cisco Meraki ruggedized dual-band wireless access points, strategically placed for optimum performance and coverage both inside the facility and extending outside the loading dock area to cover the freight containers. 5 Cisco Meraki PoE network switches were installed to power the wireless access points, provide L3 routing for multiple networks, cloud managed visibility and control down to the port level, and data collection and monitoring of the end-points connected to each switch. The solution also required 5,800 ft. of copper and fiber optic cabling that was run throughout the warehouse. Bluetowne provides Zinus with ongoing infrastructure managed services to support the solution and ensure optimal performance though proactive monitoring, maintenance and remediation.

THE RESULT

Zinus has a solid, high functioning wireless infrastructure that supports the high demands of its daily operations, including the continuous connectivity of 100 handheld scanners throughout the facility campus. With Bluetowne’s infrastructure managed service offering, Zinus enjoys peace of mind knowing any issues will be taken care of before they impact operations. The solution achieved such desirable results, Zinus is planning to partner with Bluetowne to deploy a similiar wireless infrastructure in its Northern California distribution center.

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Bluetowne Blog, Case Studies, Tech Talk

July 12, 2016

Live Oak Consultants Partners with Bluetowne to Achieve Worry-Free IT That Meets the Mission Critical Demands of Its End-Users

“Bluetowne is there when we need them, without the overhead associated with having a dedicated IT person on my staff. They are intimately familiar with our environment and resolve any issues that arise quickly. Bluetowne provides a critical support function that enables me to focus on what we do best – provide high-value, quality engineering services.” – Richard L. Owens, PE, Managing Principal, Live Oak Consultants

THE CLIENT

Live Oak Consultants (LOC) is a full service civil, structural, mechanical, plumbing and electrical engineering firm providing quality, custom solutions to meet their client’s needs using the latest technologies. LOC is designed to be responsive to projects of all sizes, and boasts an impressive client list that includes names like Boeing, SC Ports Authority, Gulfstream Aerospace, Trident Technical College, MUSC, Robert Bosch, Clemson University, The College of Charleston, BP Cooper River, Lowcountry Orphan Relief, Metanoia, Water Mission, WestRock, Ingevity, Nucor, and Patriots Point Development Authority.

THE CHALLENGE

LOC was growing from a small firm, and reached the point where they could not effectively manage their own IT, and needed outside help and expertise. Due to the nature of LOC’s work, they demand an always available, secure environment with large file storage and high performance computing requirements for massive customer projects. Remote workers must also be able to operate effectively utilizing the firm’s CAD software and large file storage at a high performance level. LOC needed a partner who could not only lead their IT strategy to support the company’s fast growth and technology requirements, but also manage the daily operations and end-user requests so they could focus on providing responsive, high end service to clients.

THE SOLUTION

Bluetowne’s advanced service desk, monitoring and proactive maintenance solution was implemented to create a cohesive and high performance environment to meet the demands of LOC’s mission critical end-user requirements. With an infrastructure powered by Cisco, Meraki and Dell, LOC’s operating platform was tuned and optimized to provide higher throughput network capacity and visibility into network bottlenecks and congestion. Bluetowne implemented an end-user compute standardization and hardware validation based on repeatable custom computer images, providing seamless functionality with LOC’s multi-layer CAD and design applications. Finally, layered security was deployed across the environment to provide central logging of application and hardware activity. Bluetowne’s managed platform services support application was rolled out to provide end-users the ability to live chat with a remote technician, create support tickets efficiently and provide on-the-fly self help by running local system maintenance and tuning commands.

THE RESULT

Bluetowne’s BlueCare managed platform service provided LOC with a hands-off solution that addressed their high performance IT operating requirements and provided standardization in a responsive, repeatable and economical deliverable. End-users now operate at a higher productivity level with greater confidence in system up-time. All infrastructure and end-user computing systems are regularly monitored and tuned in accordance with industry best-practices and Bluetowne field-experienced engineering validation. As a result of Bluetowne’s ongoing service delivery, LOC is able to scale effectively, achieve operational efficiency, and proceed with confidence in achieving success with their demanding daily workload. LOC’s IT infrastructure is stable, effective and provides the firm competitive confidence in their marketplace.

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Bluetowne Blog, Case Studies, Tech Talk

June 22, 2016

Young Clement Rivers Partners with Bluetowne to Virtualize Physical Servers and Applications to Increase Control and Operational Efficiency

“Bluetowne got what we needed without trying to oversell us “stuff.” They spent a lot of time on site understanding the dynamics of our firm and our users’ needs, and designed the perfect solution to help us achieve our goals.” – Cy Nordoff, IT Director, Young Clement Rivers

THE CLIENT

Young Clement Rivers (YCR) is a law firm headquartered in downtown Charleston, SC that is recognized locally, nationally, and internationally as a leading force in complex litigation and transactional work. YCR’s seasoned attorneys practice in nineteen different legal areas, representing clients in almost every aspect of civil law from Admiralty to Workers’ Compensation.

THE CHALLENGE

While YCR had enjoyed years of operational success with their expanding local datacenter, management and implementation of new servers in an all-physical environment was placing a strain on the organization from an IT management perspective. Declining operational efficiencies were being noticed by upper level management in all areas, and YCR needed an effective way to fully manage the local datacenter stack while maintaining control over server and application growth.

THE SOLUTION

YCR partnered with Bluetowne to migrate all physical servers to a new VMware virtualized cluster. YCR requested the use of Dell hardware for both storage and compute in the new environment, and Bluetowne provided a flexible solution design utilizing YCR’s preferred hardware manufacturer at the time. The solution included Dell ESXi hosts, Dell EqualLogic iSCSI SAN and Dell Force10 iSCSI switch stack all under the control and oversight of VMware vCenter. The solution also included the creation and implementation of new Citrix application and Microsoft Exchange clusters for increased user demand. Bluetowne provided in-progress project and subject matter training and guidance for YCR, providing a smooth transition to YCR staff oversight and management of the new local datacenter.

THE RESULT

Today, YCR can effectively control and manage all hosts, 20+ virtual servers and storage environments, utilizing a single pane of glass. Increased operational efficiencies within the YCR IT department have enabled the team to expand their own knowledge of the virtualization stack, providing greater influence on the direction of the firm’s IT budgeting and growth decisions. YCR’s user-base can now securely access all of the firms’ applications from any device, anywhere, utilizing the Citrix remote access platform. YCR’s best-in-class infrastructure enables them to better serve their clients, provides state of the art security for sensitive client data, and positions the firm for future growth.

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