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Case Studies

Here are some of the ways we've helped our clients

1. Big savings on Cisco core switch components 

The local office of Japanese multi-national was looking down the barrel of some large costs for a basic core switch upgrade with significant lead times due to scarcity of these items in the local market. 

After providing some swift assistance with a server disk upgrade Touchpoint was asked if they could also help in this instance. With our unique knowledge of the local and global market and with our large supply network built over more than 10 years we helped the customer to source these items in time meet their project's requirements and save over $10,000 in the process

2. HP Performance Servers - stat! 
When the local office of a Global Investment Bank needed a latest generation server no yet available in Australia they reached out to Touchpoint. Working with a specialist offshore provider Touchpoint was able to source 4 units to the customer's exact specifications and deliver them to site within 7 days. 

This in turn allowed the bank to deliver a key project in good time and within budget to one of their foreign customers looking to trade on the Australian stock exchange with absolute minimum latency.

3. Fully project-managed, high-security, Dell server upgrade

One of the big two local telcos with thousands of servers deployed around Australia needed to significantly extend the operating life of 3 x Dell R900 servers in three, separate, high-security data centres in Melbourne. 

Touchpoint has provided a full solution including - source the hardware (no longer available from Dell), a complete test of all components in similar server, project management of the installation, installation by a fully qualified engineer with all the right security access approvals, after hours access and completion of the work within the allocated outage window

4. Keeping the gas flowing

One of Australia's largest mining & resources companies identified that a crucial SCADA platform was running on an aging HP server platform. Having calculated the risk as too high given the replacement application was still six months away, it was decided that two additional servers, completely identical to the production platform, should be sourced and held locally as hot spares. 

Given the brief of an exact match of 10 year old technology, Touchpoint again accessed their global network of specialist suppliers and located the exact machines required. These were then shipped and landed in Sydney, then put through a stringent series of stress tests before being delivered to door of the customer's regional location in northern WA.

5. Service & support for legacy hardware

One of Australia's major defense contractors is tasked by the ADF with keeping certain critical storage technologies running for another several years ahead a full-scale hardware upgrade.

After struggling for several years to effectively manage the spares pool for this equipment they turned to Touchpoint for assistance. Over a period of several months of research into the underlying tape-based technology Touchpoint pin-pointed the problem and developed a new process for systematically screening out 'non-compliant' tape hardware. This in turn provides significant saving in man-hours and delays caused by inferior parts being in circulation

6. M5000's in a hurry! One of the big four banks required improved performance from an aging server fleet. They knew they needed 2x Sun M5000 servers and attached SAN storage but weren't sure the software would run on these machines.

Touchpoint quickly provided a rental M5000 to test the proof of concept. Once the machine had passed testing, the additional server and storage was rapidly delivered and installed. The processing was then cut over to the new environment and the business over-achieved its goals for the project.

Touchpoint's ability to source, configure, test and deliver the desired enterprise level hardware in short timeframes meant the IT team could deliver on aggressive timeframes to the business.

7. Successful decommission - minimum effort, maximum return A multi-national finance house was decommissioning 6x IBM pSeries servers from the production environment and wanted to ensure they had the best market return whilst minimising the effort of disposal.

Touchpoint provided an engineer on-site to assess the machines and develop the extraction project plan. Touchpoint contacted local and overeseas buyers to assess market interest in these machines. The best buyer was secured in Europe and the client accepted their price.

Touchpoint delivered on the project plan, which involved decommissioning, packing, wrapping and removing the equipment from the company’s site. Handing our client a generous cheque while the servers flew to their new home in the chilly north was most satisfying for all concerned! The client experienced minimum effort for maximum return on their redundant hardware.

8. Strings between the cans A Professional Services company ordered a cable from a Tier 1 Reseller that was due to arrive in time to install additional storage for a critical project. Paperwork was in place, payment had been made and ETA confirmed. Two weeks later, the client was still waiting for delivery. Despite many phone calls and emails, the $300 cable was nowhere to be seen.
One phone call to Touchpoint, and the client had the cable within 24 hours. The reseller refunded the money and the client’s project was underway at last.

Touchpoint have more than 25 years combined industry experience. Touchpoint has many local and overseas suppliers of new, near new and used equipment (from full systems to cables!) that can be rapidly shipped to make sure your projects stay on track.

Touchpoint can help your organisation too with your current requirements, contact us now on 02 8424 3500.

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Testimonials

"Many thanks for all you have done for us, if only all suppliers were like you!"
ICT Director, Global Media Organisation