Managed IT contract pays off before first bill is paid

Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute was in an odd position: its servers were working perfectly, but had run out of warranty. The company was not in a financial position to replace the servers, however, so it instead engaged a third party to manage the equipment, supported by service level agreements (SLAs).

Baker IDI is a leading health and medical research institute, dedicated to reducing ill health and mortality caused by the effects of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. The need for reliable IT servers is paramount to the work done within the institute, with invaluable research data that needs to be readily accessible at all times.

It was for this reason that Baker IDI turned to Australian systems availability specialist Interactive, to supply critical maintenance support to the out-of-warranty IBM server equipment at its Prahran head office and additional IT equipment in Alice Springs.

“It was too risky for us to continue using the out-of-warranty equipment in case anything went wrong; however, we just weren’t in a financial position to replace perfectly good IT hardware,” explains Rachael Dalton, Chief Information Officer, Baker IDI.

“Interactive provided the perfect solution to our problem, providing a straightforward hardware maintenance agreement which ensured our equipment would be supported by dedicated engineers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,” says Dalton.

Interactive provided an SLA for Baker IDI, with a guaranteed two-hour, on-site response from a dedicated engineer and 100% parts availability.

The institute needed to call on Interactive’s services only two days after they’d signed the contract, to respond to a server issue.

“We had to utilise Interactive’s services before the ink had dried on our contract and before we’d even paid our first bill; the turnaround was fantastic. It immediately confirmed to my team and I that we’d chosen the right company - we were really impressed with the responsiveness of the team and the knowledge of the on-ground engineer,” Dalton says.

According to Dalton, one of the other major benefits of working with Interactive is the simplicity of making any changes to their agreement.

“Our initial agreement with Interactive wasn’t very complex, so there was no need in the beginning for any significant changes to our contract. However, as time has passed, we have needed to add new items of equipment to our hardware, which is such a seamless process with Interactive,” says Dalton.

“Once funds are available, we would also like to speak with Interactive about its disaster recovery services and look into how we can implement a recovery process for Baker IDI,” Dalton says.