Provide a brief description of the Solution, Service Provided, or Initiative?
Jolera provided a complete redesign of a network architecture to eliminate a number of pain points at North York Community House. The result is a fully managed network, virtualized servers and desktops. Staff have greatly enhanced productivity tools and access allowing them to focus on their mission rather than being distracted by the burden of a broken infrastructure.
Describe what makes this Solution, Service Provided, or Initiative original or innovative.How is this over and above the accepted norm?
North York Community House is a not-for-profit that has been serving the residents of southwest North York for over 20 years. They are committed to working with individuals, groups and neighbourhoods to address the issues that are of concern to them; from reducing isolation for newcomers and providing support to new parents, to bringing together residents to strengthen their communities. Their goal is to provide the support people need today, in order for them to succeed tomorrow. North York Community House has grown to a staff complement of over 80. Programs are currently conducted in over 50 different locations in western North York and Rexdale. When Jolera was engaged to work with North York Community House, staff worked from 6 different locations on a very poor infrastructure. Computers were set up in work groups with poor connectivity with many outages for the branch offices. Staff had very limited access to e-mail and in spite of having an Exchange server, received their mail by POP from a third party. No data was backed up and security was extremely weak without even a firewall. Staff had no remote access capability. Jolera designed and implemented a full terminal services solution using Microsoft Windows 2008 Server. Roaming profiles were set up to allow all users full access to their applications and data regardless of location. A standardized suite of productivity tools was deployed. Connectivity was improved by implementing a private network fully monitored and managed by Jolera. Exchange 2003 was migrated to 2007. Servers were consolidated and virtualized with XenServer. Problems that had plagued North York Community for a considerable time were resolved allowing them to focus their attention on serving their very important mission in the community without being continuously distracted and limited by their technology platform.
Describe the improvement this Solution, Service Provided, or Initiative made to the customer’s sales or revenues. What changed?
The total cost of ownership of the environment dropped substantially. The greatest benefit is that staff have the tools that they need to get their work done from virtually anywhere at any time. Staff can now focus on fulfilling the mission instead of working manually and being distracted by poor tools, slow performance, and constant outages.
Describe the improvement this Solution, Service Provided, or Initiative made to the customer’s efficiency. What changed?
The greatest benefit is that staff have the tools that they need to get their work done from virtually anywhere at any time. Staff can now focus on fulfilling the mission instead of working manually and being distracted by poor tools, slow performance, and constant outages.
How did this Solution, Service Provided, or Initiative improve the customer’s ability to serve its internal and/or external clients?
Overall staff productivity has been greatly improved. The ability to work remotely and at any time has also contributed to greater productivity.
In what ways does this Solution, Service Provided, or Initiative go above and beyond industry norms and expectations?
Jolera was able to leverage our managed service architecture to provide leading edge solutions that would not otherwise be available to a not-for-profit. Jolera brought good practices from not only the IT industry, but also from the not-for-profit sector.
