City Of Warrenville Case Study
3 minute read
How the City of Warrenville gained efficiency by transitioning their IT strategy from reactive to proactive
The City of Warrenville, located approximately 30 miles west of the City of Chicago, is recognized as a small, hometown refuge nestled in the center of the dynamic and nationally recognized research and development corridor that runs through DuPage County, Illinois. It's a town where families can enjoy a safe, clean, aesthetic way of life and businesses benefit from a community that is open for business.
A point of transition
In June 2017, the City chose to leverage AIS as an MSP to handle IT moving forward rather than hiring an in-house IT person. AIS was currently monitoring the City of Warrenville's server environment while providing an escalation point for day-to-day end user support. This change required initial conversations to determine expectations.
During the conversations current pain points were discussed:
- Regular breakdown of computers
- Consistent Wi-Fi connectivity issues
- Budgeting for IT expenses
IT goals were established:
- Identifying the cause of breakdowns and reducing the frequency
- Reduce the “emergency” aspect with proactive planning
- Maintain consistent billing of IT service expenses
Each option was thought through and with the alignment of AIS's managed services and the City of Warrenville's IT goals, it was decided to entrust AIS with their IT strategy.
The transformation
In order to tackle some of the ongoing equipment failure and future goals to be achieved, it was important to work together on prioritization. AIS's initial IT assessment and reporting helped prioritize current issues while creating a benchmark for progress.
Quarterly Business Reviews (QBR's) and ongoing IT assessments opened the door to:
- Transparency of IT performance, security risks and vulnerabilities
- Comparing the previous quarter and goals to the current state and latest assessment
- Ongoing prioritization of short term and long term goals
- Planning for future initiatives
Ongoing ticket trend analysis and information from our assessments indicated that many computers were being used past end of life, which translated into consistent computer breakdown tickets. The City did not have a mechanism in place to easily track a replacement schedule. An asset tagging project was started and the naming convention used to identify each piece of hardware was changed.
An End of Life target for hardware was adopted and hardware refresh program created. Desktops, servers and networking equipment are now properly budgeted for and replaced regularly to limit hardware malfunction and reduce impact on user efficiency.
The fixed monthly investment for 24x7x365 support along with systematically replacing hardware is expected to improve the City’s ability to effectively budget for IT capital and operational expenses.
What’s next for the City of Warrenville?
The City of Warrenville and AIS are committed to proactively addressing IT needs. During this upcoming year, AIS will complete a city-wide future needs assessment to start road mapping the next 3-5 years.
Last modified
September 13, 2021