“If you’re looking for an IT partner to take your company to the cloud, Cloudview Partners is your answer. They understood my vision for improved collaboration, innovation and resiliency and made it a reality. They’re one of the few firms that listens deeply, challenges when appropriate, then works side-by-side to build a first-class solution. It is truly a pleasure to work with them.”
Charles Fenstermaker, President
C. H. Fenstermaker & Associates, L.L.C.
The Client
Fenstermaker is an Architectural, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) company specializing in survey and mapping, engineering, and environmental consulting services. Fenstermaker serves Pipeline, Transportation, Energy, Coastal, Water Resources, Petrochemical/LNG, Utilities, Industrial, Ports, and Municipal markets in the Southwest United States. Founded in 1950, Fenstermaker is a family-owned-and-operated organization with a strong code of ethics and a mission to improve the lives of their clients, employees, and the environment. Fenstermaker’s leadership is actively investing in growing the business, leveraging its strong culture, and led by technology.
The Ask
Fenstermaker maintained an on-premises data center and was interested in exploring if Public Cloud was a feasible business option. Fenstermaker was seeking recommendations on mapping out its journey from on-premise to a Cloud infrastructure. Executive leadership required clarity on the entire journey and its financial impact, from capital expenses to operating expenses and beyond. The ask was for a comprehensive plan that tied the strategic vision and business needs to the technical architecture that could be implemented step-by-step.
Problem
In the past, Fenstermaker had worked with systems-integration partners but found that most were product-oriented problem-solvers as opposed to having a complete architectural vision. They needed a partner that could connect their business vision and strategy to an executable roadmap and could steer that mission to its successful completion.
Challenges & Solutions
Through stakeholder interviews, we engaged executives and IT leadership regarding their business goals and business drivers. Deep-dive discovery of the current-state environment provided insight into what is working well and what the pain-points were with the current IT infrastructure. Capacity constraints, growing data, licensing, Cloud migration feasibility for AutoCAD, ArcGIS, Microstation, Bentley, connectivity to branch locations, current M365 Cloud-usage, operational challenges – all of these aspects were analyzed. Current infrastructure spend was collected and analyzed. All key business and technical stakeholders from various lines-of-business participated and provided input.
The comprehensive Cloud adoption Roadmap provided clarity on how the entire business can run in the Cloud – the What, the Why, the How, and the How-Much. The Roadmap laid out the technical architecture for Applications, Data, Infrastructure, Virtual Desktops, and integration with M365. The Roadmap also provided clarity on what the cost journey would look like and identified potential cost-savings. Several optimization opportunities were uncovered – retiring multiple virtual-meeting software by consolidating the organization on Microsoft Teams. Importantly, through the process of creating the Roadmap – all the key client stakeholders bought-in to the plan and had clarity on execution.
Success
Fenstermaker is now executing their vision of a fully Cloud-enabled IT infrastructure, delivering better performance for their applications, resiliency, and protection of their data, simplifying IT management, streamlining operations, reducing costs, and improving service delivery for all stakeholders. The new Cloud environment is improving collaboration with internal and external partners using Microsoft Teams, increasing the functionality and capabilities of their technology platforms, ultimately making their business data more valuable.