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

Managed cloud providers supplier Node4 has revealed particulars of the way it helped considered one of its charity shoppers 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 working a VMware surroundings. The backup and catastrophe restoration elements of this setup had 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 connect with the charity’s programs, 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 connect with the community for any purpose, the distant employee can be unable to go online and work from home till somebody on-site had positioned their pc and stuck the problem.

The shortcomings of this setup had been laid naked through the Covid-19 pandemic, when 50 of the charity’s staff needed to all of the sudden pivot to working from home.

Darren Mullin, head of IT at The Lowry, had been in search of 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 surroundings 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,” stated 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, sooner servers that additionally sported extra space for storing, 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 surroundings and related information – 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 undertaking, Mullin is now taking a look at different ways in which Node4 can help 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 stated.

“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.” 

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