The Challenge
This San Francisco Bay Area investment management firm has always chosen to outsource its IT support in order to focus on its mission of providing clients with personal service. However, its previous IT support provider was no longer delivering the same level of service. Instead of the same engineer who had been working with the firm for years, the IT support provider now seemed to send a different technician every few months. The constant turnover made management question whether it was getting maximum value for its dollar. The investment management firm needed a team it could rely on for consistent best-of-breed services and IT support.
The Solution
After asking vendors and business partners for referrals, the firm chose Xantrion for its combination of competitive pricing and service guarantees — in particular, the promise that it would be assigned a single ongoing point of contact.
“I like the consistency of knowing our engineer,” says the head of operations and compliance. “And if our engineer isn’t available, the call-in IT support group is solid in an emergency.”
At first, the firm implemented Xantrion Certified Support for computer network monitoring and management of in-house servers, applications, and computers. As Xantrion introduced cloud-based services, the firm adopted online backups, and then hosting.
Over time, Xantrion has taken on all these IT infrastructure and cloud service duties:
-
- Hosting file servers remotely
- Hosting email and other business applications remotely
- Monitoring and managing a local server for complex financial software
- Maintaining an onsite mirror server for remote files and applications
- Replacing a five-tape backup system with automated online backups
The Outcome
Today, the firm’s IT infrastructure is hosted almost entirely by Xantrion, with the exception of a single server running a financial application too complex for cloud computing. The firm also enjoys the peace of mind of knowing its backups are continuously updated, easy to recover, and fully compliant with all relevant cybersecurity regulations. Most importantly, it has an ongoing relationship with a single engineer who’s familiar with the firm’s specific needs.
“It’s all about the peace of mind of knowing we have a plan in place for any emergency,” the head of operations and compliance says.