Star Events Ltd – Helping to build the business:

In 1999 Star Hire Ltd (as they were then) were using a modem to download emails to a single computer and then manually distributing then around internally. Supporting Role was brought in to advise on a better email solution, and installed a small Intel InBusiness email station which allowed them to have individual email accounts, with remote access when they were out of the office. They also had a networking issue that meant that whenever the CAD staff saved a file, the accounting system crashed. The source of the problem was identified as an overloaded hub, which was replaced by a new (at the time) fangled device called a managed switch that controlled the network traffic flow and prevented the surge of data from the Design department overloading the network.

Within the year, Star Events Group had grown to needing a more grown up solution, and also needed a replacement for their ageing Novell Netware server. A Microsoft Small Business Server solution was implemented, and over the years this was seamlessly upgraded from SBS 4.5 via SBS 2000, to Server 2003, and on to multiple Servers running Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2012.

Because of the nature of the business, remote access was a must-have, and a dial-up solution with multiple modems, was in time replaced by VPN as the Internet connections became larger and more affordable. A very cost effective office-to-office link was established early on for a satellite office in Manchester, and by 2012 a VPN to an office in Shanghai as well.

Roger Barrett, technical director said “A high degree of reliability and dependability was demanded, and during the course of one review, it was determined that our uptime was better that that of Office 365 over the same time period.”

Supporting Role also helped identify and implement other IT requirements, including a custom invoicing add-on for the accounting system, and a database systems to track the sales and project management process which allowed freelance project managers to remotely access just their own project files. Other projects for the company included a mobile office, remote site wind monitoring and linking the further corners of their growing and sprawling site in Bedford together using fibre optics and wireless bridges.

The growth of the company over 30+ years allowed the owners to recently sell the business to a multinational. Supporting Role was part of that growth for over 18 of those years.