Norfolk Broads Direct is a family run business headed by Paul and Barbara Greasley and has been providing holidays on the Norfolk Broads from Wroxham since 1878. They provide a perfect Broads holiday experience on one of their luxury hire cruisers or from the comfort of one of their delightful waterside holiday homes.
Onyx have been supplying and supporting the IT at Norfolk Broads Direct since 2004 and this recent refresh of systems has been one of many over the years.
Managing Director Paul Greasley had already upgraded his workstations to Windows 10 last year, so he had no worries about the impending demise of Windows 7 at the end of this year. However the Windows Server 2008 operating system on his current server needed upgrading as this becomes end of life this July, and the Sage SQL based accounting system also required an upgrade to be compatible for Making Tax Digital from this April.
As Paul says “Over the years I am used to updating my IT systems and in conjunction with Onyx we always plan a phased approach. This allows me to organise installations around less busy times and by dividing the various upgrades into manageable chunks this has less impact on my business”
Onyx worked with the Sage accounts vendors and installed a new virtualised server alongside the existing and migrated all the users, data and configurations in the background. The Sage reseller then installed the updated version of Sage on the new server and began test migrating the data - all without any interference to the daily workings of the NBD team. Paul had already migrated his email system to Office 365 so there was no interruption to his daily communications and the final switch over was planned and actioned with hardly any disruption.
NBD now are now up to date with their Windows Operating systems, MS Office and Sage ready for a busy summer.
Paul states “I was very pleased with the planning and minimal disruption to my business, but then again I knew that would be the case as Onyx have always been well prepared for their installations and upgrades.”
