Client Overview
Industry
Manufacturing
Company Size
>50 employees
Products Used
HPE servers and Windows Server 2019
Microsoft 365
Mimecast Cloud
SQL server for Sage 2000
Ubiquiti UniFi wireless
FortiGate firewalls
About Chord Company
Founded by Sally Kennedy in 1984, Chord Company is a British manufacturer of high-performance audio and video cables, designed and crafted to bring unparalleled enjoyment to our customers’ experience of music and film. The business experienced significant business growth fuelled by glowing industry reviews, award-winning products, and an expanding network of local and international partners. As demand grew, so did the Chord Company’s team and systems, increasing the complexity for Chord Company’s IT team.
Chord is a manufacturer first. Its engineering effort belongs on cable design and production, not on keeping servers alive. As the business grew, its IT had to grow with it — and stop being something the company had to think about.
The Challenges
From the 2010s onward, Chord had to adapt its infrastructure and systems to deliver to more customers than ever before. The business was expanding through all channels, with the infrastructure struggling to keep up. With increasing demand and the challenges of global business and e-commerce, the business found itself firefighting IT issues, which cost time, money and valuable resources.
The IT support company Chord was using at that time focused on fixing the symptoms of IT issues but not the root cause. Responses would become slower over time, leading to a constant cycle of things breaking and being fixed – often slower than Chord Company could have resolved them in-house. Realising this was neither right nor sustainable, they sought change: a secure, scalable strategy that could grow with their business, and proactive support that could prevent issues and minimise downtime, so they could focus on their business and customers rather than their IT.
When Innovate first looked at the estate, it found:
- A single on-premise server, five years old and at the end of its supportable life, carrying Active Directory, file and print, DHCP and DNS, remote desktop services, and email — one piece of hardware holding up the whole company.
- A single firewall protecting the site, with no second unit to fail over to.
- Wireless that had grown organically into roughly six SSIDs across extenders from different vendors — difficult to manage, difficult to troubleshoot, and inconsistent for staff and visitors alike.
- Email security catching legitimate mail alongside the spam, with little room to tune the rules.
- A finance system the business was outgrowing, with a move from Sage 50 to Sage 200 that would need a properly built SQL Server platform behind it.
The requirement was not a single upgrade. It was a sequence of changes, each one dependent on the last, delivered without taking a working manufacturer offline.
The Solution
Six projects, delivered in the order that let each one pay for the next.- A foundation built to last: Two new Windows Server 2019 servers replaced the single ageing machine, with a rebuilt Active Directory, secure VPN access, and a next-generation firewall.
- Email security that works: A move to Mimecast Cloud gave Chord finer control over mail rules and stopped legitimate email ending up in the spam filter.
- Mailboxes to Microsoft 365: Every mailbox was migrated after a full audit and licence review, with data copied overnight and at weekends and the final switch-over in working hours when support was on hand.
- Existing hardware repurposed: The old Exchange server was rebuilt as the SQL Server host for Sage 200, so the finance upgrade needed no new server spend.
- One wireless platform instead of six: The mix of networks was replaced by six Ubiquiti access points under one UniFi controller, with separate staff and guest networks.
- No single point of failure: Two FortiGate firewalls now run as a failover pair, tested at Innovate's premises first and installed in the same visit as the wireless work.
A Foundation Built to Last
Innovate rebuilt the server environment from the ground up rather than patching what was there. Two new servers running Windows Server 2019 replaced the single ageing machine — one carrying Active Directory, file and print, DHCP, DNS and remote desktop services, the other running Exchange Server 2019 – for email, calendaring, and collaboration — behind a next-generation firewall giving far tighter control of inbound and outbound traffic. Active Directory was restructured as a greenfield domain build rather than migrated in its existing shape, and VPN access was configured so home and mobile workers could reach company resources securely. The cutover was a single planned migration onto a platform specified to serve the business for four years and beyond.
Email Security That Stops Getting in the Way
Chord's email security moved to Mimecast Cloud. The driver was practical rather than theoretical: the business needed more granular control over mail rules, and it needed fewer legitimate emails disappearing into the spam filter. Innovate ran Mimecast in outbound monitoring mode first, letting the system learn normal traffic patterns, and only then cut over to full inbound and outbound protection. Users noticed the result rather than the migration.
Mailboxes to Microsoft 365
Every on-premise mailbox was then migrated to Microsoft 365. The work began with a full mailbox audit and a licence review, which also tidied away unused accounts. An initial seed ran overnight, followed by a test cutover on a single low-priority mailbox, a second seed, and then a planned and coordinated cutover of everything else. Mail flow through Mimecast was updated, arbitration mailboxes cleaned up, and both Outlook on the web and the Exchange Admin Center blocked from external access.
The scheduling was deliberate. Seeding ran overnight and at weekends, when it could not affect anyone; cutover ran in working hours, when users had support on hand the moment they needed it. Outlook clients reconfigured themselves, and Innovate published a knowledge base article so staff could sort out their own mobile devices without raising a ticket.
Making the Existing Investment Work Harder
Moving mail to Microsoft 365 left the on-premise Exchange server with nothing to do — and Chord with a finance system it had outgrown. Rather than quote for new hardware, Innovate repurposed the former Exchange server and rebuilt it as the SQL Server host for Sage 200. Windows Server was reinstalled, drivers and firmware brought up to date, the machine rejoined to the domain, antivirus and backup deployed, management tooling added, managed service accounts created, and SQL Server installed to Microsoft best practice. The build was delivered collaboratively with Chord's Sage partner.
One project had funded the next. Growth in the business drove the finance upgrade, and the IT investment already on the floor was made to carry it.
One Wireless Platform Instead of Six
The fragmented wireless estate was replaced with a single, centrally managed platform: six Ubiquiti access points, a UniFi controller to manage them and one 48-port PoE switches, with separate corporate and guest networks configured and tested. Coverage became consistent, guest access became properly segregated, bridged the gap into their new office, and troubleshooting became a matter of looking in one place.
What happened next says as much about the delivery as the design. With the new access points, new firewall connections and consolidated server cabling all landing on the same switch, every port was used. Innovate spotted it, ordered a second switch and uplink, and sent an engineer who lives locally to install it and tidy the patch cabling — closing the gap without travel costs or a second round of disruption for Chord.
Removing the Last Single Point of Failure
The site was still protected by one firewall. Innovate replaced it with a high-availability pair of FortiGate next-generation firewalls in active-passive configuration – keeping one firewall on standby should the other fail, migrating the existing policy set across, then building and failover-testing the cluster at Innovate's own premises before anyone travelled to site. The old unit was decommissioned on the day. Both appliances carry premium support and unified threat protection licensing.
The firewall replacement was scheduled deliberately alongside the wireless work so that both could be completed in a single coordinated visit — one interruption to a working factory instead of two.
The Innovate Difference
The manufacturer found Innovate through a trusted business partner who had been in the same situation and credited Innovate with turning their organisation around. That same partnership approach now extends across its wider supplier network, with Innovate handling third-party technology conversations on Chord Company’s behalf.
Along with Innovate’s strategic view, the business especially appreciates working with a local partner that shares its own values and ambitions, and which offers the close, collaborative support the business was looking for to achieve their goals.
As part of the continual improvement, Innovate regularly reviews technology the cable manufacturer is using and makes recommendations, explaining why and the advantages each would bring.
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Key Takeaways
Challenges
- A single five-year-old on-premise server carrying Active Directory, file and print, DHCP, DNS, remote desktop and email — at the end of its supportable life
- Email security catching legitimate mail alongside spam, with little room to tune the rules
- On-premise mailboxes limiting collaboration and tying mail to ageing hardware
- A finance system the business had outgrown — Sage 50 to Sage 200 needed a properly built SQL Server platform
- Wireless grown organically into roughly six SSIDs across mixed-vendor extenders — hard to manage, troubleshoot and rely on
- A single firewall at the network edge with nothing to fail over to
- IT ownership pulling engineering effort away from cable design and manufacturing
How Innovate Solved Them
- Rebuilt the environment from the ground up on two HPE ML110 Gen10 servers running Windows Server 2019, with a greenfield Active Directory domain, secure VPN access and a next-generation firewall in front
- Moved email security to Mimecast Cloud, run in outbound monitoring mode first to learn normal traffic before cutting over to full inbound and outbound protection
- Migrated every mailbox to Microsoft 365 after a full mailbox audit and licence review, with overnight and weekend seeding, and a single-mailbox test cutover
- Rebuilt the previous Exchange server as the SQL Server host for Sage 200 to Microsoft best practice, delivered collaboratively with Chord Company’s preferred Sage partner
- Consolidated onto one centrally managed platform: six Ubiquiti access points, a UniFi CloudKey+ Gen2 controller and two 48-port PoE switches, with separate corporate and guest networks
- Replaced it with a high-availability pair of FortiGate 70G firewalls in active-passive configuration, policy set migrated and the cluster failover-tested at Innovate's premises before anyone travelled to site
- Handed every project into fully managed operations: service desk and endpoint support, Intune device management, server monitoring and patching, firewall change governance, Microsoft 365 administration, backup and restore — with service reviews, SLA reporting and a technology roadmap on top
Business Outcomes
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The whole business no longer rests on one box; a platform specified to serve Chord Company for four years and beyond, with remote and mobile working supported securely
- Granular control of mail rules and fewer legitimate emails lost to the spam filter — users noticed the result rather than the migration
- Mail and collaboration run in the cloud, unused accounts and licences tidied away, and staff self-served mobile setup from a published knowledge base article instead of raising tickets
- The finance upgrade landed on hardware Chord Company already owned — one project funded the next, with no new server spend
- Consistent coverage, properly segregated guest access, and troubleshooting in one place; when every switch port filled up, Innovate spotted it and fitted a second switch using a local engineer — no travel costs, no second disruption
- No single point of failure at the edge, both units under premium support and unified threat protection — and scheduled alongside the wireless work so the factory took one interruption instead of two
- Chord Company's estate is monitored, patched and supported day to day by Innovate, with 30-minute target response on the highest-priority incidents; the business has stopped having to think about IT
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