Marathon Consulting

The Challenge

An interior design firm contacted Marathon to replace their dated and malfunctioning infrastructure. The entirety of the firm's hardware had been leased, and as the lease was approaching renewal, they decided to investigate other options.

Marathon began by interviewing management and staff, and performed a full inventory and evaluation of all computers and related machines in the office. This led to a plan for a full replacement of the leased hardware, including a strategy for deployment of the new equipment, involving all aspects of the firm's infrastructure. Once the plan was approved, the first stage, procurement, began.

Marathon's team purchased a Dell Poweredge server, 15 Dell Optiplex desktop machines, improved networking equipment, and accompanying software, including Microsoft Small Business Server with MS Exchange 2000, Mobile Information Server, and Sharepoint Server. Before installing the new hardware, we configured all machines for deployment.

The Solution

Over the course of a single night, we removed and packed the existing equipment from the office and installed and tested all new equipment. When the staff arrived the next morning, the new hardware and network were fully functional.

The day after the install, a Marathon technician worked onsite to ensure everything had been supplied as requested, and to orient staff to the new equipment and configuration.

Marathon oversaw the return of the leased equipment, which began with a complete backup of all machines to a central server. All hard drives were formatted to guarantee the security of the firm's confidential data and old machines were repackaged and loaded onto a truck for return to their manufacturer.

After the move, Marathon continued to provide technical support services on an ongoing basis. With a remote access point and working relationships with the firm's staffers in place, we were able to resolve new support issues quickly and efficiently.