Eastlight Community Homes is a vibrant, resident-led housing association for the East of England, creating affordable homes.
It owns and looks after 12,500 social homes across Essex and Suffolk, and plans to build another 3,800 by 2025. Eastlight made the decision that it required new telephony and IT infrastructure to ensure it was using the best, up-to-date technology.
THE CHALLENGE.
It wanted to consolidate two different systems being used for internal and external calls. This included replacing a legacy analogue, on-premise phone system with a cloud-based solution. This major project would allow Eastlight to increase operational efficiency and the overall customer experience.
Calls made internally by the housing association had involved using Microsoft Teams for over five years. However, external calls to the customer services department and others were done through an analogue, on-premise system.
Central was tasked with managing the smooth transition to a new, cloud-based telephony system. Having provided technology support for Eastlight’s small IT infrastructure team for over a decade, Central understood its evolving needs. It had already supported the housing association with complex IT integration following the merger of two previously independent organisations.
The main challenge was working with Eastlight’s housing management systems provider to integrate the new system and ensure a smooth transition, whilst allowing operations to be carried out with minimal disruption.
THE SOLUTION.
The initial task was to link both the Colne and Greenfields locations together, and Central achieved this through installing a wide area network (WAN), along with a new Cisco-based local area network (LAN) within the Colne site, as the existing network was not fit for purpose.
As both organisations were operating from separate Office365 systems, Central amalgamated both into one. Further to this, each site used a CITRIX desktop delivery application, which was also merged into a single entity. Additionally, Central managed the migration of databases with legacy set-ups that posed a significant challenge when moving to new networks.
A new Cisco Meraki Wi-Fi system was installed at the Greenfields site as the incumbent system was severely outdated, mirroring the Wi-Fi solution already in place at the Colne offices. Due to the nature of the merger, both sites required more data storage capacity, as the HD (hard drive) capabilities at the Greenfields location were not enough to absorb the Colne information. To avoid business disruption, Central carried out as much of the work as possible in the background, with the full merger taking place over a weekend.
Central acted as a hub for issues during the project process, and provided continuous engagement between all stakeholders to effectively manage the changes. Engineers from Central met with the in-house IT team at Eastlight twice per week to ensure the smooth running of the project.
THE OUTCOME.
The ultimate goal was to merge the two companies as quickly as possible, focusing on achieving fully merged systems within just a few months. This included having to be flexible and complete new projects during the first lockdown in 2020, so that no time was lost in making the infrastructure live within the initially agreed timeframe. Central was able to successfully meet this goal.
Utilising a wide range of engineers’ skills to facilitate a stable transition, Central reduced time spent operating and maintaining two separate systems — mitigating cost and complexity — and allowing Eastlight to end previous provider contracts quickly.
The solution recommended by Central allowed the newly formed housing provider to focus on its core functions of business application issues, by taking responsibility for the combining of the two IT infrastructures and the implementation of new technologies and security systems. This has enabled Eastlight to smoothly progress from two organisations into one.
Central now provides ongoing managed services to Eastlight Community Homes, with further digital transformation projects in the pipeline.
Key Highlights
- Merger of two separate Office365 systems
- Cisco-based WAN implemented to connect two locations
- Data storage capacity increased
