Server & AD Replacement Case Study

Problem

Doctors understand the value of a second opinion. Hyde Park Pediatrics is a large multi-office pediatrician practice who had been struggling with their IT services provider. When Hyde Park approached us for an assessment, their network, server, and workstation performance had all slowed to the point where it was affecting their ability to treat their patients, and they were not getting satisfactory answers from the team at their current IT provider. We were invited to come in and perform a thorough assessment of the environment, during which it was revealed that many of their issues were actually caused by helpdesk and engineering staff who were not communicating with each other.  As a result, different technicians were implementing different “fixes” based on their best guesses with no overall strategy. In this case, we found that their staff had been struggling to manage Active Directory and Group Policy, and had implemented various third-party software solutions on all workstations and servers to try to bridge the gap. Seemingly simple tasks such as drive mapping, printer mapping, password complexity enforcement and other common needs were all being handled by separate applications which were conflicting with each other to the point where workstation logons could take as long as an hour to complete. Adding insult to injury, every time the Hyde Park staff would call for helpdesk support, technicians were not picking up where previous technicians had left off and the process of waiting for a new assessment each time was too much to bear. 

Solution

Due to the extensive damage to Active Directory, we felt the best solution was to completely replace the current domain with a new one. A  formal project plan was presented, which included the purchase of a new server as well as enumerating the specific goals the client had for the management of their workstations and servers in a way that allowed them to stay secure and compliant. Once approved, we executed the project by implementing our server and workstation management tools, delivering and installing the new domain controller server, and pushing a mass migration of all workstations and servers out of the old domain and into the new one. When all of the equipment came back online we saw an immediate and massive improvement in performance. Workstation logon times had returned to normal and we had a clean slate to work from going forward. From there, using industry best practices we were able to implement all of the rules and special features that the previous provider had struggled with, including some important security changes that the previous provider had said were not possible. Once the domain issues were resolved we were then able to properly bring the environment up to the level of management a practice this size requires to be successful. 

Our solution to this problem was actually quite simple, but it has been our structure and discipline going forward that has kept this client happy for years since then and lead to many successful subsequent projects. Where the previous provider’s helpdesk struggled to maintain a consistent strategy with this client, our team has excelled and become an invaluable resource. At the core of our success is our obsession with thorough documentation,commitment to executing projects and solutions with a well thought out strategy, and clear communications between our various teams and clients. We are proud to have Hyde Park Pediatrics as a loyal client.