Our client has become a household name in the UK retail landscape, since becoming established in April 1990.
However, as a billion pound company, their IT team are faced with the daily pressure of keeping the lights on. And, while they had internal expertise, their resource didn’t stretch to provide 24/7/365 monitoring or maintenance that their critical business systems’ demanded.
This case study focuses primarily on the events which unfolded out-of-hours, striking their business with a crisis at 4pm. The issue occurred after Windows Server security updates had been applied, which unexpectedly resulted in the inability to start a production SQL Server instance.
The SQL Server instance was responsible for running a cascade of critical automated overnight processes, gearing the business up for the next day. The gravity of the situation loomed large, casting a shadow over the client’s ability to trade on the following business day.
Without a resolution, the failure to start the SQL Server instance would jeopardise the seamless flow of their business operations. To troubleshoot, we joined a bridge call which would maintain communication, along with infrastructure and networks teams, until a solution was found.
In the first hour of initial investigations it became apparent that the issue was not exclusive to SQL Server. A bigger issue with permissions had affected other platforms across the business, and not limited to SQL Server.
Despite the issue being unrelated to the systems we are employed to manage, we remained on call to support with recovery options and advise on the database recovery until 2am, when the solution was successfully implemented.
This scenario highlights the extent that our employees go to, to become part of your IT team and give you the commitment required to maximise performance.
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