Case Study: Management Support Server Upgrade

Akins IT helps Management Support migrate their physical server infrastructure to new hardware and improve their backup process.

Management Support owns and operates approximately 13,500 apartment homes throughout Arizona and Texas. For more than 50 years, they have provided quality apartment living for our residents. They offer an extraordinary selection of amenities and are dedicated to maintaining their properties at the highest level, in order to provide resort-style living.  Management Support stands behind their reputation for outstanding service and manage communities you will be proud to call home.

Management Support's physical server infrastructure was coming to the end of its life cycle and needed to be upgraded. The old servers were running on outdated operating systems and had limited storage capacity. They also had a backup process that was not reliable and did not allow for offsite recovery. Management Support wanted to migrate their virtual machines (VMs) to new hardware and configure a new storage host to house all their VM data. They also wanted to enhance their backup process and ensure that they could recover from any disaster scenario. 

Akins IT was hired by Management Support to handle their server upgrade project. Akins IT had the expertise and experience to procure new server hardware, lift and shift VMs to new hardware, and configure new storage host to house all VM storage. Akins IT also had the knowledge and skills to improve Management Support's backup process and enable offsite recovery via Veeam, a backup and replication software. 

• Akins IT procured new server hardware that met Management Support's requirements and budget. The new servers had more processing power, memory, and storage than the old ones. They also had the latest operating systems and security patches. 
• Akins IT lifted and shifted 20 VMs from the old servers to the new ones, using VMware vSphere, a virtualization platform. The VMs were migrated without any downtime or data loss. The VMs included various applications and databases that Management Support used for their daily operations. 
• Akins IT configured a new storage host to house all the VM data. The storage host was a Synology NAS device, a network-attached storage solution that offered high performance, scalability, and reliability. The storage host had enough capacity to store all the VM data and allow for future growth. 
• Akins IT enhanced Management Support's backup process using Veeam. Veeam allowed for fast and efficient backup and replication of the VMs to the storage host and to an offsite location. Veeam also enabled granular recovery of individual files, folders, or VMs in case of any failure or disaster. Veeam also provided reporting and monitoring features that gave Management Support visibility and control over their backup status and performance. 

By partnering with Akins IT, Management Support successfully upgraded their server infrastructure and improved their backup process. The new servers and storage host provided Management Support with enhanced performance, security, and availability of their VMs and data. The backup process using Veeam ensured that Management Support could protect their data and recover from any scenario. The project was completed on time and within budget, with minimal disruption to Management Support's operations. Management Support was very satisfied with the results and the service provided by Akins IT.