“We would definitely recommend Cloud400. For a whole bunch of reasons. It is SOOOO much faster than our old 170 machine. We don't have to worry about doing backups, or any system issues or staying current with the operating system. They are the data center for us. They did not pull any ‘that is not exactly what we contracted to do.’ Any time we needed help, they helped.”
Background
Bay Area Produce (BAP) is a wholesale grocery broker, doing business across the United States and into Canada for the last 42 years. Bob Loyst is Vice President/Sales at BAP and Ann Richmond is their IT Consultant.
Bay Area Produce was running their business on an old AS400 170 using the VAI System 2000 software, which had been modified to handle their produce business.
Retirements, Restructuring, Office Move
Bob explains, “Several of the partners were retiring and we decided to move our offices to another location and do some restructuring. When we looked at relocating the AS400 and the infrastructure required for us to maintain it, we decided to look at alternatives.”
Ann continues, “One alternative was an entirely different software and hardware platform, but honestly we liked what we had. Our folks were comfortable with how to handle the software and it met our business needs. We were not sure if the AS400 would survive a move and frankly we did not want to be in the data center business.”
Source Data Products Suggests Cloud400
“We already had a business relationship with Source Data Products. When Bob Losey brought up Cloud400 as an alternative, we were very interested,” Ann explains.
No Need To Shop Around
“Frankly we did not feel the need to shop around. We wanted to move fast and we had confidence in Source Data Products and their recommendations.”
Easy Cloud400 Setup
“I have to say that the folks we worked with were terrific. We did a full system save and then sent them the tapes. Unfortunately one of the tapes was partially corrupted, but they kept trying and were able to restore the system.”
3 Weeks To Get Up And Running
“We started out with just over 3 weeks to get everything backed up, moved over, and up and running. It got down to the wire, but once they recovered the data and did the multiple system upgrades to get us up to a current version of OS400 (V5R4) it was ready. So this was on a Thursday, I believe, and we were shooting to be up and running on the next Monday.”
Data Cleanup Included In Move
“We made the decision to do some cleanup of data and users which included renaming the data libraries. So I spent the next couple days doing that. We were ready by Monday.”
VPN On Every PC, VPN Firewalls At 3 Locations
Ann shares, “The folks at Cloud400 were terrific. The plan was to use VPN firewalls at the 3 main locations, with a few remote users using desktop VPN software. Well, as you might expect with moving into a new office, it was nearly a month before that infrastructure was in place. The Cloud400 folks worked with us as we put desk top VPN on every PC so the salesmen could be up and putting in orders. They worked with our office in Nogales and got their firewall VPN up immediately.”
Major Printer Changes
“Also they were extremely helpful with printers. We decided to move away from pin feed checks and invoices, and over to laser printers. The Cloud400 team helped us configure all the printers.
“I would say that from the systems side we were totally ready with the new environment. We still had a number of programming changes that we were working on.”
Join Logical Files vs Original Files
“However there were some things to remember. We had a lot of join logical files that were in a different library than some of the original files. So we ended up having to recompile every join logical and many logical files. Not a big deal. You just have to remember to do it.
“Also we use quite a few queries for simple reports. Because we changed the data library names we had to go into the queries and make sure we were pointed at the correct libraries.”
“Cloud400 Team Saved Our Bacon”
“A few memorable things stand out. First they did not give up on the tapes we sent. We really did not have the time to do another full system safe for a variety of reasons and the Cloud400 team saved our bacon on that.
“The help on the printer configurations was also critical for us. Our Nogales office is all on Macs and they were able to help with those as well.
“And of course they ended up helping us with lots more desk top VPN setups then we had anticipated.”
With Cloud400, Focus Is On Business
Bob says, “It seemed like a big decision at the time, but I think really that removing the physical system from our day to day operations, let us focus better on our business.”
Ann adds, “And though not always recommended, we did do a bunch of system clean up and changes at the same time. Honestly we had more problems with our network installation and phone system then we had with the move to Cloud400.”
Ann Richmond Recommends Cloud400
“We would definitely recommend Cloud400. For a whole bunch of reasons. It is SOOOO much faster than our old 170 machine. We don’t have to worry about doing backups, or any system issues or staying current with the operating system. They are the data center for us. They did not pull any ‘that is not exactly what we contracted to do.’ Any time we needed help, they helped.”