ACHA
Background
Argyll Community Housing Association (ACHA) is a Registered Social Landlord providing over 5000 affordable homes for rent. ACHA was formed to take forward the transfer local authority houses from Argyll & Bute Council to a not-for-profit housing association. The Association is now responsible for the letting and maintenance of these properties, along with a programme of new builds across approximately 7000 square kilometres of urban, rural and island communities.
Challenge
ACHA faced the challenge of becoming independent from the Council which included the migration of their current IT infrastructure into a new system. That`s where Provista got involved to design and install the right solution for the organisation. When designing a solution housing association’s location – West Coast of Scotland had to be taken into account as it can be difficult to access. Another important
factor was that ACHA has a small IT team and does not have an in house “Network Specialists” therefore solution had be easy to manage and support without sacrificing the variety of features.
Length of deployment was also an important factor as the association could not progress as an independent entity from the Council until the LAN and WLAN infrastructure was in place.
Solution
The solution designed by Provista is based on Cisco Meraki LAN & WLAN technologies and provides “Cloud Networking” where both the LAN & WLAN can be managed from a single feature rich dashboard accessible from any computer using a standard web browser.
Solution is also futureproof as all updates and new features will be deployed automatically via the Cisco Meraki portal for the life time of the product. To simplify the deployment all the APs and switches were pre-built in the Provista Lab for another ACHA contractor to deploy and install. Provista then assisted the contractor to develop, test and verify the configuration for the correct operation of LAN equipment and provide onsite resource for the installations of several sites: Dalriada House, Lochgilphead and Lamont House, Helensburgh.
To ensure the smooth and timely running of the project Provista’s professionals provide remote assistance for all other sites.
As a result of the new Meraki solution ACHA now has the appropriate infrastructure in place to support a fully functional LAN & WLAN with access to easy to use Meraki Cloud Portal that allows the ACHA IT team manage all aspects of their network. As part of the project Provista is also delivering a five year managed service where we can easily access the Meraki Dashboard and remotely support ACHA and
thus freeing up the small ACHA IT team to concentrate on more strategic projects and tasks.
Business benefits
By utilising Provista’s solution, ACHA were able to appreciate the following benefits:
High performance network with maximum uptime
Ability to easily control multiple sites through the cloud managed dashboard
Ability to monitor and configure network from anywhere where you can access browser.
IT team or external advisors can access remote diagnostics that automatically monitor and alert you of
any problems or threats.
IT support available from any location.
Software & Feature updates automatically applied over the 5 year term
Budget using Opex with Cisco 0% finance
About Provista UK Ltd
Based near Glasgow with offices in Aberdeen and Birmingham,Provista provide expert consultancy across a range of technologies and manufacturers including Cisco, Meraki and other leading vendors. Their highly accredited team are specialists in unified communications, data centre networks, secure public and guest wireless, IP security and IP LAN and WAN networks.
Task
Design an advacned network for the given case study.
Write a report on a network plan and configurations.
1. Draw a complete advanced network design. Include atleast 2 sites and VOIP.
2. Detailed setup of advanced network devices.
3. Write configurations of each networking device which are included in the whole network.
4. Configure switches, routers and PCs on physical networking devices and demonstrate the working
model.
