Clipper Corporation Case Study
ABOUT CLIPPER CORPORATION
Since 1994 the Clipper Corporation has been a leading the global distribution of commercial restaurant supplies and uniforms. Built upon a reputation for responsiveness and quality, Clipper has evolved and expanded into a world-class custom manufacturer of products for private and consumer brand labels. Their list of clients reads like the who’s who of popular restaurants and fast-food chains including Denny’s, Darden, Olive Garden, Taco Bell, Burger King, Chili’s, and more. They also supply giants like the Home Depot and Costco.
CHALLENGES & REQUIREMENTS
From the onset, the IT demands on the Clipper Corporation were extreme. They were collecting a great amount of sensitive data from their customers all over the country. They also had huge amounts of accumulating data from their various supply chains as well. Mike Kielty (IT Director) and Nancy Hejran (COO) knew from the beginning that there’d be some of kind disaster or
catastrophe just around the corner. When that day came, they wanted to know their data would be protected. Migrate highly customized services and data from a 3rd party provider (hostile) servicing operations in Atlanta, Georgia and Los Angeles California. Existing Infrastructure was on the premises. There was a localized datacenter on legacy equipment. Customer was in the
middle of a major ERP upgrade during the migration.
CUSTOMER DEPLOYMENT ACHIEVEMENTS & MILESTONES
We successfully transitioned the Clipper Corporation from a localized infrastructure to the IronOrbit cloud. This enabled a more dynamic and agile business workflow. The client benefited from improved employee support. They have been able to respond quickly to shifts and trends in the market as they occur. For example, being agile and responsive to dramatic changes due to the COVID pandemic. Infrastructure: We custom-built a VDI platform based on Citrix technology to meet Clipper’s specific requirements and deployed thin client-based workstations. We migrated users, applications, and data from the traditional IT infrastructure to the new platform without operational disruption.
Email: We migrated Clipper’s existing email infrastructure to a fully managed and fully hosted IronOrbit Exchange solution, with built-in IronOrbit SendSafe email encryption.
Business Continuity, Backup & DR: We designed a business continuity, backup, and disaster recovery strategy. It featured 12 months of retention, daily snapshots, and an encrypted on-site backup solution.
Managed IT: Clipper Corporation outsourced the management of its entire IT infrastructure to IronOrbit. The Company relies on IronOrbit to keep its data safe and secure 24/7 and ensure uptime and availability.
We’ve been able to make decisions and move fast without much effort and without worrying about our IT because we had the infrastructure in place beforehand. We’ve always been cloud-based. And the support has been fantastic! It has given us peace of mind.
Nancy Hejran, COO of Clipper Corporation
DEPLOYMENT SPECIFICS
- Custom-built VDI/thin client solution, with hosted Exchange and hosted DR.
- Critical security & operating system patch management for all desktops and servers.
- Network, firewall, switch, and IDS management across all branches.
- Network antivirus, spyware, and phishing protection against malware threats.
- 24/7 real-time, non-intrusive network and security monitoring and alerting