Case Study: Mayrise

Sector:
Professional Services

Business Objective:
Protect Your Business

"Kcom were really willing to listen and engage with us to create something that matched our brief."

The customer

Mayrise supply software to local authorities and contractors to help maintain and manage major infrastructure systems in street lighting, street works, highways, ground maintenance and waste services. It's their system that maintains more than two and half million streetlights in England and Wales. As a market leader in their area of specialised software development, Mayrise rely on speed, security and robustness for the success of their business.

Quick facts

Mayrise has shown its local authority clients that externally hosted services are a secure option
Kcom's knowledge of security standards result in these risks being minimised.

Keeping up with business success

Mayrise have been helping local authorities, contractors and utility providers maintain and coordinate key public services for over 20 years.When they first moved to their Kcom virtualised server in 2009 they found its service level and performance totally fit for purpose.

Then, following a rapid upturn in business growth the virtualised server began to show signs that they had outgrown capacity. With the opportunity to take a fresh look at user needs and future capabilities, Kcom designed and implemented a new managed hosting solution which gave Mayrise the ability to move from 50 to 200 concurrent users via their own dedicated and managed servers.

The flexibility and security of the Kcom managed server solution was essential for effective asset database management and maintenance scheduling.

Mayrise can now take advantage of the speed and scalability of their Kcom installed on-site server safe in the knowledge that Kcom is managing the high performing, resilient, and highly accessible service.

Taking on the prejudice

Over the course of their business, Mayrise has shown its local authority clients that externally hosted services are a secure option. Mark Clarke sees this as an important step for them. "As a whole, the public sector has been slow to show confidence in such technologies and security risks have been cited as a major concern."

Kcom's knowledge of security standards result in these risks being minimised. Compliance with ISO 27001 Information Security Management, ISO 14001 Environmental Management, ISO 9001 Quality Management Systems and ISO 20000 Information Technology Services Management is assured.

Understanding the importance of client data security is key within Kcom. Each client brief is individually assessed and the solution tailored to meet their specific needs. For Mayrise this means that local authority call centre operatives can access their systems remotely with individual logins, with the peace of mind that all the client data is secure.

"Offering an extensive consultation process meant that we could quickly work to meet Mayrise's changing needs. When it was discovered that the virtualised server was beginning to be operated beyond capacity, our team, including two highly-skilled Solution Consultants, met with Mayrise to ensure we could create a scalable solution for the future. In May 2010 a new brief was drawn up and we went on to build a solution covering the scope of works, a migration strategy and an implementation roadmap. This was all developed and agreed within three months for a new three-year contract to begin with the new dedicated servers."
Alex Simpson, Regional Sales Consultant, Kcom

Bringing you up to date

With their new managed service now hosting all Mayrise applications, change requests are put to the Hosting Team at Kcom's Global Switch, based in their London Data Centre.

Moving forward, Kcom are due to start a series of penetration tests to ensure the ongoing security standards are met.

"For Kcom, the Mayrise move to a fully managed hosted system represents what we intend to bring to all of our projects. We're looking to offer business class quality solutions, with UK-based hosting, that ensures continuity of service and full security at every level." Alex Simpson, Regional Sales Consultant, Kcom

When migrating the data from the virtualised to the new hosted service both server systems were run concurrently for a month. To ensure they could establish the credibility of the data the new system went through extensive user testing and security checks.

What they say…

"I found that Kcom were really willing to listen and engage with us to create something that matched our brief. We were happy to work with Kcom as we were familiar with the brand and felt their services and support were efficient and effective. Kcom's expertise has been most welcome and knowing they are backed up by tried and tested security has definitely helped us build client confidence."