Description of IT infrastructure Royal Cream

In September, 2015 ALP Group — the system integrator and the Russian service provider of IT outsourcing and IT audit — announced project completion on upgrade of IT infrastructure of Royal Cream company, one of the most demanded confectionery productions in Moscow. So, more than 65% of products from the main range of the company are delivered in networks "Alphabets of Taste", "Gurme Globe", cafe and restaurants of the capital.

ALP Group services information systems and services, critical for business of the enterprise, for the scheme of IT outsourcing which purpose is their high-quality smooth operation.

Along with steadily high quality and a wide range of products, essential competitive advantage of Royal Cream company operational interaction with the existing and potential clients is. Trouble-free operation of an information system is for this purpose extremely important. Such system was created. However the increase in number of employees, partners and volume of communications connected with growth and expansion of business considerably raised loads of the existing server landscape of the customer that caused growth of number of failures, critical for business. It became clear that it is necessary to upgrade seriously IT infrastructure which part mail, the business application 1C, file service, service of Internet access, the Active Directory are – i.e. all those tools which are necessary for the most operational interaction of the enterprise with high managerial culture with partners and clients. This task was set for ALP Group. At the same time Royal Cream accomplishment of complex technical works without stopping of activity of the enterprise was one of the main requirements from the management.

Taking into account that requirements to IT at Royal Cream high, but the company now actively grows and is not able to afford too big costs, specialists of ALP Group tried to select for the solution of its tasks a pool of products from one vendor.

"At the moment the complete stack of IT products for business with high requirements to availability, performance, security, can offer only Microsoft. And, as for the settled medium-sized or large enterprise, so for small, but quickly developing even now, in crisis. It is the only vendor on the basis of which software it is possible to construct all enterprise information system. Today larger companies begin to use for the same purposes solutions based on Open Source, but so far for medium and small business this way is connected with a number of difficulties, – Rytsev Pavel, the Chief information officer of ALP Group says. – Use of technology of virtualization of Microsoft means minimization of idle times and data loss and, respectively, lack of delays in logistic and other business processes. And it is extremely important for the business which is paying the life for freshness and quality of the products".

Taking into account requirements of the customer to high availability and reliability of IT services the technology of virtualization Microsoft Hyper-V was the basis for the upgraded server landscape of the company. This platform, one of the most modern and technological in the market, allows without additional costs on infrastructure (the equipment of DWH, specialized software, additional resources of the IT outsourcer, etc.) to provide the high level of availability of services due to technology of replication of virtual servers from one physical server on another.

After upgrade the general reliability and fault tolerance of IT infrastructure of the company considerably increased. So, the number of incidents on infrastructure of the customer decreased four times in comparison with their quantity prior to the beginning of the project. And duration of idle times was reduced much.

Besides, the means of backup of business information which are built in Windows Server 2012 exempted Royal Cream company and from need of acquisition of additional IT products, and from a number of the problems connected with a multivendornost (failures because of incomplete compatibility of software, excess expenses, etc.). In process of development of IT infrastructure of the customer, already implemented tools for backup will allow not just to duplicate and save "on site" Royal Cream important information, but also to store backup copies in a cloud of Microsoft, on the remote platform. And, all this can occur without excess costs of forces, time and means.

Also, now in Royal Cream also software of Microsoft, ensuring functioning of file and terminal servers is used. And the uniform service of the directory (from the same vendor) allows on a centralized basis, to manage from one point access rights of all users to different IT services. It, in turn, provides to the company that high level of security during the work from crucial production and business information at which it aimed.

"All works on the project took place without workflow interruption as that was required by our business. Also had no negative impact on smoothly running production and administrative processes. Now we can quietly work, without being afraid for product quality, delivery time, for the relations with numerous customers and suppliers, – Zhanna Mikhalyants, the CEO says Royal Cream. – We work in really reliable and safe "field" and we do not risk production secrets, author's recipes, special technologies, time and reputation any more. At last, we can focus completely on the case, without being distracted by certainly important, but non-core questions connected with support of continuity of our business from high technologies".