Belisol & Kwadro now rely on cloud data centre myWingu

myWingu offers all the typical advantages of a cloud approach: more efficiency due to the centralised environment, better security and more flexibility. "VanRoey takes care of all management and also provides systematic backups to a second location," explains the ICT Manager at Belisol. "So all our data are centrally and securely stored and they are always accessible via the cloud, including mobile.

The financial picture is interesting: instead of investing in our own hardware and maintenance, we pay VanRoey a fixed price per month for our myWingu data centre. Through VanRoey, we also have access to highly specialised knowledge and extensive technical expertise. We even get support for Belisol from a personalised service desk in French and Dutch."

No more investing in own data centre

Group A had worked with VanRoey on a virtualisation project a few years earlier and that had gone very well. When Group A was facing a new growth phase, the existing IT infrastructure turned out not to be powerful enough. At the time, the servers were still located in the window and door manufacturer's own data centre. "We either had to revamp our infrastructure and adapt it to a larger number of users, including a redundant data centre, or we had to outsource everything," explains the ICT Manager.

Group A looked at the possibilities with VanRoey. "They then suggested running our virtual servers in their data centre on their infrastructure. All the mission-critical applications that our offices use are now running with them. Our own data centre still exists but is only used for the central services of the head office."

Good customer service requires optimal availability

Group A's myWingu cloud now runs, among other things, Equantis, a software package that the offices use to calculate the dimensions of windows and doors and make quotations based on that. The accounting packages - two different ones, for Belgium and the Netherlands - are also used via the cloud. Indispensable technology for customer service in the sales branches, but Group A was not afraid to outsource it - quite the contrary: "Given our growing customer base, we absolutely had to provide optimal availability of those critical applications, and we can now count on VanRoey's services for that."

"We couldn't possibly invest in a redundant setup ourselves and keep everything in-house. That would have been far too complex and expensive. Our core business is making windows and doors, not building data centres. Hence, it made sense to outsource everything to VanRoey's experts, including support and management. If our important applications were unavailable, that would immediately be a big problem. When, for example, a salesperson has a customer in front of him in the shop and then cannot make a calculation and quotation for the windows the customer would like to order, it gives a very bad impression. Competition in our market is very keen, so we aim for perfect customer service to differentiate ourselves from other manufacturers."

Flexibly expandable

The data centre via the cloud offers Group A ample capacity and speed, and can grow very flexibly with the organisation if necessary. On average, there are now about 100 users but that number varies because the sales people are often on the road. They also work from home while others, such as the accounting department, always work in the office with their professional applications.

"If we have problems or questions, we can always turn to VanRoey. They often give us help remotely - remote support - but if necessary they come on site. Many of our larger offices have a local IT partner that VanRoey works with to solve problems."

Smooth transition to the cloud in myWingu

The move to the cloud went very smoothly. After installing the virtual servers in VanRoey's data centre, the IT partner first carried out a number of tests to check that everything would function properly. Then - over the weekend - gradually the move of all data to the new system took place. First it was Equantis' turn, followed by the other software packages. "It was a big job but VanRoey managed everything well and also cooperated excellently with our software suppliers".

Group A is very satisfied with its cooperation with VanRoey. "We have meanwhile already expanded the original setup with additional CPU, memory, disk capacity, more Citrix servers and licences. In fact, we are growing every year and we expect that to continue. Now that we work through the cloud, we can easily accommodate any future growth. We just need to ask VanRoey after which they will take care of it," concludes the ICT Manager.