UK Mail
“UK Mail and Signals have worked well together these past 10+ years, the delivery of this project, though not without hiccups is evidence of this tight working relationship”
Joe Dudley – Head of IT Technical Services
Background:
As part of The UK Mail IT Hardware refresh, Signals were responsible for the refresh and rebuild of 65 server rooms including healing any faulty network ports and cable management. This had to be completed in advance of the new IT equipment installation.
The task was made more difficult due to differing requirements for each site. The chosen supplier for server installation required the comms cabinets and cabling to be in place prior to install and did not offer the flexibility to facilitate refurbishment of the various types of infrastructure.
The Fix:
The task was extensive; the equipment and tasks included:
- Rack cabinets; half and full height
- Fibre optic cables and switches
- Cat 5 point cabling, cable extension and relocation of communications rooms
- Patch panel installation
- Re-patching of servers, PCs, communications and telecoms
- Cleaning of the entire rooms, floor to ceiling
- Mapping and photography of before and after
The Result:
Budget was of great concern to UK Mail. Through flexibility and commitment, Signals IT managed to meet requirements. This included working unsociable 18 hour days. Travelling from the north of Scotland to the South of England, working ahead of the server installation team in each location to meet some exceptionally tight deadlines.
Two teams set up every site. Each server room was configured to defined specification (conformity). The process was performed very quickly despite the diverse operational locations. No site was offline for more than a few hours.
The project was completed under budget and delivered ahead of schedule.