GC Brieau saves the day with SherWeb’s cloud servers
A little determination goes a long way.
That’s something GC Brieau, a reseller with SherWeb’s Partner Network, learned recently while helping one of its clients migrate to our Performance Cloud.
Firm President Marc-Antoine Brillant had been talking to a client for several weeks about making the move to the cloud. Why? Its Windows Small Business Server 2003 (SBS) was getting older by the minute. It was just a matter of time before it crashed.
“At first, they wanted to buy a brand new server,” he said. “As their IT consultant, we knew choosing an on-prem solution just wasn’t cost-effective.”
This company liked having an in-house server. Yes, it was old. But it was reliable. The problem was, they didn’t understand the risk of having an entire company’s infrastructure running on a single physical server and the real costs associated with it. They were in the same position that thousands of SMBs will find themselves in the coming months as Microsoft ends its support for the Windows Server 2003 platform. And like these companies, GC Brieau’s client needed some convincing that the cloud was the way to go.
Although he knew this would be a challenge, Brillant had a plan. He prepared a six-year analysis comparing the cost of running a new server to switching to the cloud. The server price tag was just the beginning. When calculating the total cost of ownership, most companies overlook the indirect costs of in-house solutions. This client was no exception. Costs like maintaining the hardware, troubleshooting technical problems or running the server room had been left out of the equation. And more would appear. A quick fix to eliminate these costs? Moving to the cloud.
The (un)expected crash
Sometimes, all the arguments and analysis can’t beat destiny. While GC Brieau’s client was still pondering whether or not to switch to the cloud, the company was in for a rude shock on December 16. The SBS 2003 server crashed, bringing production to a halt.
Marc-Antoine Brillant had to act quickly. All the production data and employee files were at risk of being lost. Luckily, he had worked with SherWeb’s technical support team before. He knew a good solution was just a phone call away.
Following Brillant’s instructions, the SherWeb technical team created and deployed a virtual server to store his client’s data. At the same time, Brillant headed to the customer’s headquarters. Once on-site, he was able to use the already-deployed server to add a domain controller to back up the Active Directory. He also replaced the network card so the old server could keep running temporarily. In the end, the company server was down for less than 24 hours.
All small business owners would agree: downtime must be kept to a minimum as it is extremely expensive. Brillant proved that GC Brieau could walk the walk that day.
Effort that pays off
Brillant went the extra mile to help his client last December. Nonetheless, he admits working with a hosting provider like SherWeb definitely took a weight off his shoulders, thanks to the performance level of our offering.
“I put a lot of trust in SherWeb,” said Brillant. “They have the infrastructure you only see in big companies. I’m glad I was able to convince my client to switch to Performance Cloud servers.”
Let’s face it: on-premise servers are getting too expensive for SMBs. With cloud servers, hardware problems are out the window.
“I’m happy this client doesn’t have to worry about hardware problems anymore. They now have a server that’s always up to date. Plus, they benefit from components they could never afford otherwise.”
The only solution
“Although the cloud may look expensive, there’s more to it than just a price tag, “said Brillant.”And many companies aren’t doing the math accurately when comparing in-house vs. cloud solutions. Once migration is completed, the business is protected. There’s only one solution for me and that’s SherWeb.”
SherWeb’s cloud servers have been available to resellers since December 4. Would you like to offer your customers the industry’s fastest cloud servers? It’s simple, become a partner today!
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