Building a local IT support counterpart for the US-based team
Background
A US based corporation contacted PTS for help with their Hong Kong and China operations. They were presented with several notable technical challenges only exacerbated by Covid and their inability to travel to the region.
The company has three facilities in China comprising a mix of both office space and manufacturing facilities as well as office space in Hong Kong. The US based IT team had been tasked with several objectives to achieve in China and Hong Kong.
- Migration of all on premises infrastructure to the cloud
- Implementation of a new IT operational support service for the Hong Kong and China region
- Migration to a thin client VDI based solution for their China based staff
- Complete network rebuild and overall infrastructure modernisation program.
Challenge
Delivering the overall infrastructure modernisation project while minimising disruption to the local operations and transitioning from the incumbent IT service provider to PTS with the primary stakeholders 12 hours behind Asia time zone. Engaging local stakeholders and aligning their expectations and understanding of the project goals and timelines. Negotiating with multiple vendors to secure necessary equipment and services on time and budget.
Additionally, navigating Covid restrictions and hampered by the global chip shortage which resulted in long lead times of many mission critical pieces of equipment.
PTS Solution
The corporate HQ didn’t have a full and complete picture of each site so to begin with PTS completed a comprehensive onsite audit of all sites in China and Hong Kong. The discovery process included
Complete infrastructure audit of all devices connected to the network
Documented a detailed asset register
Full network topology diagrams
Patching and OS versions
Installed applications
Server room hardware, UPS and cooling design
Comprehensive documentation and project reporting
WiFi Network design and implementation
All end users mapped to devices
Following the audit PTS then created and presented a project plan for each element including the transition to our IT Managed Services for operational support. Once accepted and over the next several months PTS delivered a program of complete infrastructure modernisation, cloud migration and transition to PTS IT Managed Services for all IT operational support for the region.