WHO ARE Xentrall?

Xentrall is a public sector partnership, established in 2008, between neighbouring unitary authorities – Stockton-on-Tees and Darlington Borough Councils. Xentrall works jointly with both councils, supporting them in the delivery of their back office services – primarily ICT, Design & Print, HR and Finance.

ICT supports 500 servers, two datacentres, a WAN with 4500 users across 75 sites, telephony, video conferencing and over 200 different applications.

Why Cisilion?

David Reese, ICT Infrastructure Team Leader, Xentrall

“Cisilion won with the lowest cost and highest quality tender. We were reassured by their extensive knowledge in the Public Sector.”

SNAPSHOT

Xentrall approached Cisilion wanting to retain existing functionality but stay within budget. Over the course of two intensive sessions, Cisilion were able to identify a lower cost model in the same range of switches with the functionality, and then build out the capacity required using fabric extender switches.

Xentrall also required a number of smaller switches and maintenance for these and all existing kit in our datacentre centres. Having helped with the procurement specification, Cisilion won with the lowest cost and highest quality response.

CHALLENGES

Xentrall were using legacy network solutions that were not performing as required, this resulted in the following challenges:

  • Specialist resources required to maintain existing legacy network
  • Several essential core network switches needed replacing in a short period of time
  • Restrictive public sector budgets

HOW DID CISILION HELP?

  • In-depth pre-sales consultancies
  • Cost savings
  • Increased productivity of their staff
  • Provided valuable advice and expertise
  • Exceeded business objectives

SOLUTION

The solution met all requirements and was within the agreed budget. Cisilion’s price was market tested in a tender process to ensure the project was value for money. The implementation of the new core switches, which was like carrying out open heart surgery on the network over two consecutive weekends went flawlessly, with excellent technical backup from Cisilion consultants.

The solution was finalised with a five-year maintenance agreement.

BENEFITS

Through the deployment, Xentrall were able to complete the project within the agreed budgets and tight time frame.