During a 2-year contract we provided third line software support for the migration of a complex website to a new platform.
Our client was part of a larger company when they decided to buyout their part of the business. Their particular part of the business acted like an online shop, selling and providing access to information procured by their clients. They were faced with migrating their part of the main company’s website to a newly hosted website and then maintaining and running that website. Apart from the normal website elements, the part of the website they were going to need to migrate also included: a CRM to hold details of their clients and what they had purchased; methods of information distribution for the items once they were purchased; and online procurement services.
After some searching the client selected nTrust Systems to manage their IT needs and hosting requirements. nTrust put them in touch with Terzo Digital and we subcontracted to nTrust to provide migration and setup consultancy alongside 3rd line software support.
Initially Terzo Digital assisted in the planning and execution of the move of the website from within one organisation to become a free-standing entity for the new company. This included:
- Some elements of due diligence to ensure that we could successfully extract and host
- Planning a procedure for switchover which would ensure minimal disruption to the provision of their services on line
- Planning a deployment environment which would allow further development of their website along with test staging, prior to any rollout to live. This allowed us to work on and fix bugs whilst the main web site stayed up and serviceable
- Ensuring a software source control system was used to maintain the code and website.
- Devising and performing testing on the new website
- Considering backup practices to ensure that the website could be rebuilt easily from recent backups minimising any interruption to the client’s business.
- More recently we have supported the new website provider in ensuring that their migration to the new website was as painless as possible, providing technical explanations and regular exports of information.
Once the system had gone live, our work changed to third line support. Enhancements, problems or bugs with the website were entered into nTrust’s help desk system and then, as necessary, passed to Terzo Digital to investigate and fix. Once we had developed the fix, it was rolled out to a staging system so that nTrust and the client could satisfy themselves that it was resolved and then rolled out to live with minimal disruption.
The main technologies related to the website were all the standard Microsoft fare, including IIS, ASP.Net, C#, Razor and MS SQL Database. However, we also had to deal with an online procurement interface and the migration and maintenance of a bespoke CRM.
All this work was carried out alongside the staff from the parent company, the client and nTrust Systems. Russ McKenzie, Managing Director of nTrust Systems said:
We were pleased to work with Terzo Digital who provided a safe pair of hands in supporting our customer’s complex, mission-critical website. Despite being an SME, they brought a big company’s mentality and professionalism in the service they offered.
From Terzo Digital’s point of view nTrust have been consummate professionals providing friendly and trustworthy support throughout the whole engagement to both the client and ourselves.