LEELANAU COUNTY MICHIGAN

Have an RFP for an upcoming project?
Contact Us Today
INDUSTRY
GOVERNMENT
CUSTOMER
LEELANAU COUNTY MICHIGAN
CHALLENGES
Migrating existing web hosting services. Storage for infrequently used digital records. Project budget restraints. Small IT support department.
SOLUTIONS
Strategically designed and developed a plan to migrate existing web hosting services to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform. Designed and implemented customized configurations for the County’s virtual servers to allow additional storage and archiving of digital records.
RESULTS
Additional Storage resources available on the Network. 25% increase in website hosting performance. The proposed Cloud solution met required budget constraints and allowed the IT Department to focus on other significant projects.

INTRODUCTION

Leelanau County is located in the northwest lower Challenges peninsula of Michigan and is one of 83 counties in the state, with a 2010 Census Population of 21,708. It is bordered on three sides by Lake Michigan, with 100 miles of shoreline, 33 inland lakes, and 5 islands: North Manitou, South Manitou, North Fox, South Fox, and Gull Island. Leelanau has the second-highest proportion of water area of any county in the United States, behind only Keweenaw County. Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, located on the west side of the county, was voted the 2011 ‘Most Beautiful Place in America’ by Good Morning America.

CHALLENGES

Leelanau County’s web hosting service provider discontinued web hosting services, leaving the county with a need to migrate existing data to another web hosting platform with minimal downtime. With Leelanau County’s IT resources at capacity, the project demanded immediate attention. The County also required a secure and reliable solution to store and archive electronic records. Leelanau County required a low cost storage solution without tapes to back up a large amount of digital records, plus traditional server hosting requirements. The County also required a scalable object storage solution that could be easily and securely accessed from multiple locations due to data replication requirements.

This project needed to be completed quickly and within budget parameters. Ron Plamondon, Director of IT for Leelanau County, decided to utilize Strategic Communications’ Cloud solutions as part of the G2G Contract. “We decided to utilize the G2G contract because we had been a pilot during other projects with Oakland County and the State of Michigan”, said Plamondon. “Strategic Communications had a proven track record on the G2G contract”.
Image

SOLUTION

Strategic Communications knew Leelanau County required a solution which would quickly and effectively migrate data from the existing hosting platform and store electronic records that were seldom accessed. The solution needed to be: Scalable, User Friendly, Secure.

Strategic Communications’ Cloud Team completed a full assessment of Leelanau’s current hosting and determined a more robust solution was required in order to accommodate the County’s needs.

Strategic decided to utilize Amazon Web Services (AWS) as the trusted Cloud platform for this project. Strategic used Amazon AWS’s Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) services with Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) for the traditional server hosting component. Amazon’s Simple Storage Service (S3) was chosen to provide unlimited object storage use by Leelanau’s hosted servers and on premise location. For digital archiving, Strategic was able to setup Amazon’s Glacier Storage solution to provide a low cost secure storage that would meet organizational retention requirements. “Strategic was able to analyze our current usage and projected usage and help us determine the proper configuration”, said Plamondon. “They also were able to set up our Amazon account and the virtual server for our use”.
Image

RESULTS

Leelanau county saw an immediate benefit with the additional storage for electronic records. By utilizing Strategic Communications’ Cloud Services powered by AWS, the County’s website saw at least a 25% increase in overall website hosting performance. “We were able to very quickly migrate from one cloud provider to AWS,” said Plamondon. “The service set up was done by Strategic Communications, which really sped up the process”.

Overall, Leelanau County was very happy with the Cloud solution Strategic Communications designed and implemented. The solution was completed within established budget limitations. “The cost of the new service was the same as our old service, yet we have much more capability with the new service,” said Plamondon. “Hats off to Strategic Communications, Oakland County G2G and the State of Michigan for leading the way”.
Have an RFP for an upcoming project?
Contact Us Today

ABOUT STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS

Strategic Communications is an Information Technology (IT) company focused on Cloud Solutions, IT Security, Network Engineering, and A/V systems design. Founded in 1994, the company works with commercial enterprises, State/Local/ Education (SLED) institutions and federal agencies across the United States delivering solutions to fit specific business requirements and end-user needs. Leveraging our partner relationships, business longevity, and experience we provide clients with the highest level of customer support. Strategic Communications is a Cisco Gold Partner, Microsoft Silver Partner, AWS Advanced Consulting Partner and an ISO 9001:2015 certified business, offering best in class technical solutions. In addition, the company is classified as a Woman Owned Small Business (WOSB), Woman Business Enterprise (WBE) and Minority Business Enterprise (MBE).