Metcast Services Limited is one of our longest-standing clients. They’ve been with us since 2008, and it’s amazing to see how their company has grown in just 10 years to create the massive Kaikaha Group. This entity contains the consolidation of IT infrastructure from 4 businesses. Metcast Services who deal with Chemicals and Equipment, Hibiscus Solutions in Ingredients, Dominator Garage Door Solutions, and Kaikaha Brands.

The project was very interesting and challenging at the same time!

To consolidate the IT infrastructure of four companies under one IT platform. This would reduce the total IT spending for Kaikaha Group and give them better control and insight into their own data.

No downtime in any circumstances
Migrate IT Infrastructure from all four companies to the new premises where all staff will be seated.
Upgrade Server Hardware with appropriate specifications to handle 50 users.
Upgrade Small Business Server often referred to Windows Server 2016 platform.
Migrate Onsite Exchange Email to Exchange Online Email as part of the MS Office 365 Business Premium subscription.
Create Cloud Storage solutions using SharePoint and OneDrive.
Implement MS Team for collaboration using chat, audio/video conferencing, and file sharing.
Set up RDS Server and provide secure remote access to business applications using dual authentication.
Upgrade to UFB and Implement VOIP PBX Solutions on a single UFB connection without compromising voice quality.

We were asked to ensure there were no compromises with the first requirement – “No downtime”.

Each line of the brief was a project in itself, so it was as if we were working on 10 projects simultaneously. Moving offices to a new development site, dealing with Chorus, migrating emails to MS Office 365 exchange online platform. When you put all these together, it is nerve-wracking and hair-pulling to ensure we do not upset any executives of the four companies.

Interesting Scenarios

Here are some interesting scenarios we had to deal with during the project work:

Upgrading server from SBS 2011 to Server 2016 that doesn’t have an exchange onsite – this meant we had to either upgrade our server first or implement the Office 365 online exchange first.
Each user had a minimum mailbox size of 10 GB, and on top of that, each company used a public folder that was 50 to 70 GB. Imagine migrating this much data to the MS Office 365 cloud platform! It took days to plan and migrate.
The company had 50 users with so many high paid executives and directors. Making all of them happy and informed was a big ask from engineers who don’t always like to talk.
Applying and getting Chorus to provision UFB at the new development site. You have to try and experience this bumpy ride with your clients.

Hard Work

Big ups to our team who meticulously planned each phase and task, completing most of the work in time before the deadline. However, moving to the new office was a pending task because Chorus was not able to locate the physical address of the development site and couldn’t install ONT. Once they managed to do this, we were able to complete the job successfully.

In the end, everything worked perfectly and our engineers walked away from the site like heroes! It is not easy to pull off the consolidation of IT infrastructures. But thankfully, we managed to do it.

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