Anchor Sign is a premier sign manufacturer, building signs for anchor tenants such as Starbucks, CVS, PPG, and other well known international brands.   After years of growth the time had come for Anchor Sign to build a newer, bigger, stronger IT department.  The two-man department needed to grow and their lead technical manager had just landed a new gig on the west coast and would not be around long to help them get there.   After a month-long process of interviews and background checks, Anchor Sign hired Cyber Sprocket to take over as interim CTO (Chief Technology Officer).

Rebuilding An IT Department

While the previous stewards of the Anchor Sign IT department did a great job laying the foundation, it was time to grow.  New people needed to be brought in.  Systems needed to be assessed and updated or replaced.   New hardware, new software, new people.   It was a big job and we were ready to get it done.

After months of learning the ropes, fully understanding what was in place and how things worked, it was time to start the upgrade process.  The interview process started almost immediately, within weeks of settling in to the new CTO office at Anchor Sign’s headquarters.   Dozens of candidates applied within the first week, a few were selected for interviews.   Eventually, over the course of nearly a year, the IT department grew including senior software engineers, system technicians, and system administrators.   Some of the new hires would be groomed to become the next IT manager, eventually replacing Cyber Sprocket’s interim CTO role so that Anchor Sign’s IT department could once again stand on it’s own.

Disaster Planning & Recovery

During the year-long rebuilding process, other upgrades were in the works.  One of the main areas that needed attention was disaster planning & recovery.  One of the first things that was discovered was that the warm site, and off-site location that served as a backup to the main computer systems, was not up-to-date and had not been updated in over a year.   If disaster struck, Anchor Sign could have been offline for days, weeks, or even months and cost tens-of-thousands in lost revenue.   Plans were put in place to start an interim solution of off-site backups, redundant drive arrays, and localized storage.    Long term goals included building a near-location warm backup site, server virtualization, and more resilient clusters built on the equivalent of a localized cloud infrastructure.

While many business owners in Charleston often spoke of disasters, especially hurricane preparedness due to heightened awareness after Hurricane Katrina, Mr. Cleveland continually pushed for protection from smaller scale but more destructive disasters such as fire.   Fires are much more common than hurricanes, and unlike hurricanes they strike without warning.

Just days after discussing that very topic with the owners of Anchor Sign, fire struck.

Recovering From A Fire

Luckily for Anchor Sign, a top-notch crew of technology professionals was already in place.   While the firefighters were still on scene putting out fires, the IT staff of Anchor Sign and Mr. Cleveland were on the scene.   From 6AM that morning and for the next 72 hours, the disaster recovery plan was put into motion.  Thanks to the efforts of many people including the somewhat new IT staff, planning by Anchor Sign’s executives and Mr. Cleveland, and the quick response & hard work of the IT vendors that had been assembled, Anchor Sign’s IT department was back online and 90% operational by mid-day the following Monday; just over 72 hours after the fire occured.  Within 7 days the IT department was 100% functional & everyone was back at work in a warehouse-turned-office space helping clients and closing orders.

While the building was completely destroyed, the business was not.   Today, nearly 2 years since the 2008 fire, Anchor Sign is growing.  They are still working from the warehouse we all turned into a functional office building.  Their temporary computer room going strong with it’s new addition of a smaller footprint & lower power consumption virtualized environment that was designed just months before the fire broke out.

And in case you are wondering, one of the guys that was hired on our watch is now in charge of the IT department, having learned some valuable lessons in IT management in a trial by fire.  Literally.

• Share This:
  
• Bookmark on Delicious
• Digg this post
• Recommend on Facebook
• Share on Linkedin
• share via Reddit
• Share with Stumblers
• Tweet about it
• Subscribe to the comments on this post
• Tell a friend

Related posts:

1. Portal Architecture with Share Memories

0 Comment   |   Posted in Disaster Recovery,Information Technology,Project Management,Task Management,portfolio by lcleveland on July 10, 2008