About the University College of Osteopathy
Formerly the British School of Osteopathy, the University College of Osteopathy (UCO) has come a long way in its first 100 years and has played a significant role in championing osteopathy and furthering the profession both in the UK and internationally. UCO are the largest osteopathic educational institution in the UK, and their evidence-informed approach, high-quality teaching and excellent clinical opportunities attracts students from around the world and produces graduates who go on to leading roles within the profession.
The Challenge
The previous IT provider for UCO neglected their requirements and provided a bare minimum service. This resulted in infrastructure issues beginning to rise, minor issues that were usually quick fixes, were turning into major incidents.
Failed hot-swappable power supplies were not resolved, switches that failed were not replaced and left running without redundancy, security updates were not complete and there were multiple insecure configurations in place due to “workarounds”.
Wait times when calling the service desk were high, tickets frequently breached SLA and there was a lack of urgency in all aspects of the support.
After failing to assist during a final major incident, the UCO terminated their contract and were looking for a new provider that could drive digital transformation for the university and resolve major, long-standing issues.
The Solution
Aspgate was chosen to become the UCOs new IT provider. We spent multiple days auditing the site, creating network diagrams, reviewing configuration of network devices, servers, and Wi-Fi coverage. We provided a comprehensive report to the university and set about resolving the large list of issues.
After a long project, we successfully replaced the end-of-life Cisco ASA with a FortiGate, which was reconfigured to be aligned with best practice. We re-engineered the routing for the campus as it was suboptimal, currently routing through single points of failure and via devices that were not supposed to be part of the routing hops. Further to this, we deployed a 10GB backbone to the network, enhancing VMWare performance and user experience.
We setup our monitoring tool to proactively monitor all aspects of their network, and we can act on issues before the university are even aware an issue is now developing.
After the remediation of the infrastructure issues, the UCO were onboarded into our Service Desk, where we now support all switches, firewalls, WiFi and more, while also providing escalatory support to onsite technicians when necessary.
Key Outcomes
- Resolved network related issues; Firewall migration to better secure the network, introduced a 10GB backbone and resoleved sub-optimal routing.
- Setup proactive monitoring of their entire campus
- Fully manage all network devices and hosts
- Provide escalatory support for onsite technicians where applicable
The Feedback
“When the University was looking at resolving some of the major longstanding issues with our network, we were looking for a partner who could offer outstanding advice, support and guidance, ensuring that our infrastructure was secure yet operating at maximum efficiency.
The work completed so far by Aspgate network engineers has been absolutely outstanding both in terms of the quality, speed and attention to detail. I would have no hesitation in unreservedly recommending Aspgate.”
Richard Pierce – IT Director
