Wimbledon based graphics production company invests in hardware, e-mail capabilities, back up and broadband with AA Mac.

Production company, Echo Studios, is a trusted supplier for global  brands such as Estee Lauder, Clinique, Christian Dior and Emporio Armani.  Little wonder then that when they needed a Mac care company to ensure that they had the IT infrastructure in place to deliver for their own clients, they turned to Apple authorised service provider AA Mac.

AA Mac supplies Echo Studios with hardware including iMacs, MacBooks and server solutions.  It also services the company's network, supplies e-mail capabilities and "delivers pretty much on all our IT needs, except telephone communications,'' according to Echo Studios' account manager, Clive Samways.  Interestingly, although AA Mac is an Apple speciailst, this service also includes work on all of Echo's PC services.

"We have a Mac server, an entire studio of G5 Macs, six cinema screen displays, routers, monitors, software, a backup solution including backup tapes and drive and two buildings which were cabled by AA Mac.  In some sense, our second building was easier because AA Mac were involved right from the start here, whereas with the first building they were taking over from work done by other people," continued Samways.

Samways regards AA Mac as his first port of call for absolutely everything related to IT and feels he has evidence that, no matter what the problem, they will make every effort to solve it.

"Our most mission critical service is broadband, which AA Mac manages through a third party supplier," offers Samways.  "E-mail is absolutely crucial because all our orders come in this way.  In 95% of cases, there isn't even a phone call to accompany the mail.  As a result, if we lost connectivitity for a day, we could lose alot of money and if we lost contact for a week it could have huge consequences."  Echo Studios' broadband service features an un-capped 20mg download with a 2.5mg upload.

When Echo Studies did lose its connection, the management turned to AA Mac to keep the company on its feet for the duration of the problem.  This was achieved by setting up a number of MacBooks with mobile cards and re-routing e-mails to a single contact.

Although initial diagnosis showed that the cause of Echo Studios' internet problems was completely unrelated to any of the work done by AA Mac, the Apple Care provider nevertheless immediately set about getting to the root of the problem.  BT had made several visits to the site and on each one had run tests that had showed the issue was unrelated to their equipment.  However, AA Mac was able to establish that one of the relays that hadn't been tested, located under road outside the building, had a fault.  It turned out that the box housing the equpiment hadn't been closed properly and allowing water in, created the problem with the connection.  When BT ran tests on the equipment, the telecoms provider was quickly able to resolve the issue.

"It always seems that in everything, we are the people who have the problem that no one has ever heard of!" joked Samways.  "But it's when things like that hapen that you need a consultant who just rolls up their sleeves and doesn't stop until the job is done," he explained.

"Another big issue for us is the backup for our server.  We hold all the high resolution images for our clients, which range from pack shots to promotional; images of celebrities like Liz Hurley," continued Samways.  "We also hold the colour settings and so on - going back three four years with many clients.  If we ever lost this information, we would be literally losing everything we have.  In the past we have had small data losses but we have always been able to retrieve the relevant files.  However, the solution we have now means that even if there were a fire ravaging the building, we would be up and running in a day or so without any lost data at all."

"Backup is a huge issue in the creative industry," explains Kerrie Lee, AA Mac's Sales & Support Director.  We are constantly approached by companies who think that data loss will always happen to someone else.  The reality is that for every creative company that is properly backed up with dual redundancy in place, there is a magazine running the risk of its next issue not going to press or an advertising agency risking its assets.  It's satisfying to be able to put a backup solution in place for these companies."

Echo Studios uses a Quantum LTO II tape drive backup solution, which is running Dantz' Retrospect software.  The backup is performed in house on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays on one script and Tuesdays and Thursdays on another.  Each day, that day's backup is taken off site and the backup from the previous day returned to be used again.

Echo Studios is a relatively small company in the grand scheme of things, but is already a major player in its own industry and still growing rapidly.  Samways joined when the company had only nine staff and is now able to boast 34 staff and its own printing department, a well equipped studio and an installation team.

"The growth hasn't been simple from an IT point of view though," explained Samways.  "All of the equipment that drives our business needs to be networked and talking."

"We now have large format ink jet printers, photographic quality lambda printing, vinyl cutters and large formats direct to media printing amongst a whole host of other solutions.  It's not just printing to canvas and paper anymore either - its Foamex, corrugated board, aluminium effect board, kappa, acrylic and a mountain of other materials.  As a result, we are constantly transferring huge files and we need to do that efficiently every time."

"The next stage in the company's development may well be to build further on the installation side of what we do, which has really developed apace recently.  I think we would like to further develop  the bespoke customer service side of the industry as well," continued Samways.

"With this in mind, the work AA Mac are doing for us is important.  Having worked with other companies and experienced the definition they provide of IT support, I really believe that AA Mac take what they deliver to a whole new level.  They keep us up to date and try to make things happen for us.  They have finally made us feel secure in our process.  There is a trust there with them and we are able to reflect that onto our clients
who in turn can trust us with their production needs.  At present everything is working exactly as it should."