Node4 helps performing arts charity revamp staff home working setup with IT infrastructure overhaul

Managed cloud companies supplier Node4 has revealed particulars of the way it helped one in all its charity purchasers overcome its distant working know-how woes within the wake of the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic by the deployment of a VMware-based digital desktop infrastructure (VDI) setup.

Its consumer – the Manchester-based performing arts charity, The Lowry Theatre and Arts Centre – had exhausted the guarantee on its IT infrastructure, which comprised on-premise servers operating a VMware atmosphere. The backup and catastrophe restoration parts of this setup have been additionally now not match for goal.

The aged infrastructure additionally made working from home a cumbersome and complicated course of for its staff, as doing so required them to make use of a digital non-public community (VPN) to hook up with the charity’s techniques, and for the PC they used within the workplace to be switched on on the similar time.

If their work PC was switched off or unable to hook up with the community for any purpose, the distant employee can be unable to go browsing and work from home till somebody on-site had situated their pc and glued the difficulty.

The shortcomings of this setup have been laid naked throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, when 50 of the charity’s staff needed to instantly pivot to working from home.

Darren Mullin, head of IT at The Lowry, had been looking for finances from the powers that be on the organisation for a while to fund a system improve, and inside three weeks of getting the requested cash had a brand new IT atmosphere arrange, courtesy of its long-standing know-how partnership with Node4.  

“Before the new solution was in place, we were limited by space and server performance,” mentioned Mullin. “It meant that creating new virtual machines was difficult and time-consuming. This was very stressful for us as we always had to be mindful of meeting the service-level agreements (SLAs) for third-party ticket sales contracts.” 

The setup consisted of newer, quicker servers that additionally sported extra cupboard space, and a VMware Horizon VDI deployment that has contributed in the direction of making the distant working expertise higher than earlier than.

“It saves us so much time and makes our lives far easier. If a colleague has any IT issues, we close down their virtual machine and spin up a new one,” he added. “Plus, we can manage everything through a remote portal and don’t even need to be on-site. As a result, it’s easy for staff to split their time between working in the office and from home – something we couldn’t have countenanced a few years ago.” 

Node4 additionally rolled out a cloud-based backup service that creates on-site backups of the VMware atmosphere and related knowledge – all saved on servers in one other a part of the complicated. To add an additional safety layer, information are backed up and replicated off-site.  

On the again of this mission, Mullin is now different ways in which Node4 can assist the Lowry in its ongoing efforts to digitally remodel its operations. 

“We can see some interesting and exciting possibilities for further IT developments, including the increased use of Microsoft Azure and data analytics functionality,” he mentioned.

“Our work with Node4 will continue to help our organisation develop as a centre of creative excellence that the local community and visitors to the area can enjoy for many years to come.”