THE CHALLENGE
Tourism promotion agency VisitPITTSBURGH needed quick response times and an expert team to help manage rapid growth within their IT infrastructure. Some aspects of their growing infrastructure needed to be expedited and implemented quickly. With a limited staff, VisitPITTSBURGH struggled to handle their needs in-house, causing a need for a managed services provider.
THE SOLUTION
Magna5 Monitoring, Support, Data Backup and Disaster Recovery provided a reliable support team with quick response times to support VisitPITTSBURGH. Some of the features are:
24/7/365 trained engineers
- Project management team
- IT consulting
- Data backup and disaster recovery
- Infrastructure monitoring and management
SOLUTION OVERVIEW
VisitPITTSBURGH, the official tourism agency for Allegheny County was experiencing rapid growth within their IT infrastructure and was not equipped to handle the issues internally. During the same time, their previous vendor started to make some organizational changes that created a new reporting and billing structure that was not conducive to support VisitPITTSBURGH’s needs. Tom Yanosick, Director of IT and Operations at VisitPITTSBURGH, searched for a reliable organization that had quick response time and would understand their organization’s IT needs. He was referred to Magna5 by a few of his colleagues who had previously used Magna5 services. Magna5 has partnered with VisitPITTSBURGH for over eight years and supplies Monitoring, IT Support, Cloud Data Backup and Disaster Recovery services.
Tom Yanosick’s IT staff was not aligned with the growing infrastructure at VisitPITTSBURGH. There were some facets of the growing infrastructure that needed to be expedited and implemented quickly that couldn’t be handled by their limited staff. Tom said, “[Before Magna5] we tried to educate ourselves to support our IT needs, but the time frame between what we could sacrifice from our daily operational needs, and what we could dedicate to training didn’t make it possible to get the knowledge needed to support our tech growth.”
Tom turned to Magna5’s expert team for three critical infrastructure needs: Support, Monitoring and Protection. Through various solutions, Magna5 is able to help VisitPITTSBURGH gain the efficiency, availability and protection needed in today’s modern business world. Meanwhile, his in-house team could go back to concentrating on their core mission. “Magna5’s staff members are all knowledgeable and easy to work with. VisitPITTSBURGH has built relationships with many of the team members at Magna5.” explained Tom.
IT SUPPORT AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT
To support VisitPITTSBURGH’s growing infrastructure, Magna5 handles various projects for Tom and his team including: firewall implementations and management, wireless upgrades, VPN installations and more. They gain access to a project management team that oversees the project from stage 1 design, all the way through completion. “One of Magna5’s top benefits is their interest in our needs and guidance to help us grow technologically,” Tom explained. “They suggest innovative ideas for VisitPITTSBURGH, but are also patient through our decision making process. They also help us find the best value for our needs and budget.”
IT MONITORING AND MANAGEMENT
Magna5’s IT monitoring allows for Tom to have more visibility and control over his environment. Magna5 installed agents onto the devices and infrastructure that Tom would like to be monitored. The agents connect back into Magna5’s remote monitoring and management software that allows the Operations Center to constantly watch for performance and health alerts. When an alert happens, the Operations Center will alert VisitPITTSBURGH and immediately resolve the issue before it becomes a larger problem. Tom explains, “[Magna5] knows when there is an issue on our network and addresses it promptly, sometimes even before we know there is a problem.
DATA BACKUP AND DISASTER RECOVERY
Magna5 supplies a 24/7/365, fully-managed cloud data backup and disaster recovery solution for VisitPITTSBURGH that ensures proper data management and protection of their most critical assets. With this service, Magna5’s Operations Center handles the design, testing, scheduling and alerting of VisitPITTSBURGH’s off-site data backup. If a disaster were to occur, Magna5 offers a secure path to quick disaster recovery off-site in the cloud. Protection and availability of data was paramount to Tom’s decision when choosing a managed services provider. Magna5’s solution carries the heavy weight and ensures they achieve their SLAs. “Magna5’s alerting and data backup solution has greatly improved VisitPITTSBURGH’s business continuity and uptime.”
THE RESULTS
Magna5 was able to help VisitPITTSBURGH upgrade, enhance, manage and protect their growing IT infrastructure needs with knowledgeable support. Magna5 engineers work as an extension of their internal team, allowing VisitPITTSBURGH to realign focus on revenue generating projects and daily operations.
THE ADVANTAGES
- Better technology efficiency that supports the needs of employees
- Better infrastructure and data management
- Critical infrastructure protection THE BENEFITS
- Free up internal IT staff for revenue projects
- On-demand access to talent and resources
- Lower costs and increase technology efficiency
- Decrease downtime and associated costs
“Customer service is the single biggest reason I would recommend Magna5. As a non-profit organization, they treat us just as importantly and address our needs as if we were one of their large enterprise customers.”
– Tom Yanosick, Director of IT, VisitPITTSBURGH
