Microbyte worked with Bidfresh’s existing setup to ensure its IT systems and customers were completely covered should disaster strike.
Bidfresh Limited supplies businesses within the catering industry with fresh ingredients including fish and seafood, meat, produce, dairy products and ambient goods. A subsidiary of Bidcorp, Bidfresh has multiple sites and depots across the UK, serving both national and independent customers, who expect high standards across both produce and service.
Situation
Bidfresh knows that no matter how fast it expands, it can’t lose sight of the importance of effective IT management in its business operations. Despite gearing up for a company-wide update of its IT systems, Bidfresh had an immediate need to ensure 13 out-of-warranty servers had an effective Disaster Recover process in place. They asked Microbyte to provide Remote Server support for these servers across ten sites.
Integrating with both a client’s systems and third-party suppliers requires meticulous mapping of their existing landscape and a clear understanding of support responsibilities – and the processes all parties should follow in the event of an emergency.
Crucial to the project was minimising operational downtime to the line-of-business applications that Bidfresh rely on. Microbyte designed a solution that could restore these line-of-business databases to the failover hardware and provide third parties with fast and easy access to remote hosts and virtual machines.
Solution
By installing a Dell PowerEdge T440 server at each site with a small Virtual Machine, primed and ready in the event of a system failure, Microbyte provided each third-party software vendor with a platform to which they could restore a copy of the database and application.
Microbyte mapped out a clear, customised disaster recovery process based on their Call, Confirm, Connect, Complete framework. To ensure clarity and efficiency, they updated Support notes with clear details and instructions for support engineers regarding each application’s business function, operating system and the third-party contact.
Benefits
Bidfresh now has a reliable and effective backup solution that gives them peace of mind, and keeps business running smoothly.
“We were really happy not only with the standard and speed of the work, but with the advice and support that Microbyte offered at every stage. I could tell they weren’t interested in pushing for solutions that weren’t exactly what we needed. I really value that level of trust and constant communication – they’ve done more than install a backup solution that works well for what we need right now; they’ve thought ahead to what we’ll need down the line too.”
Ian Povey, Head of IT, Bidfresh
“Microbyte previously worked with Bidfresh on server hosting and Barracuda Cloud backups to their customers, so we were delighted to support them with an effective – and straightforward – failover solution. Due to the way IT systems have evolved, MSPs have to work with a range of third parties, without leaving anything to chance in the event of an emergency. The team are very careful to follow processes that ensure everyone knows exactly what their responsibilities are and where the buck stops. It’s always a pleasure to support clients such as Bidfresh who are committed to maintaining smooth operations and high standards even when disaster strikes. We believe in preparing for the worst to ensure we keep offering the best – and we love helping other businesses do the same.”
Natalie Prior, Account Manager, Microbyte