Edeco Petroleum Services

Edeco Petroleum Services
Edeco (English Drilling Equipment Company) was founded in 1931 as a manufacturer of oilfield and water-well
drilling equipment. In 1964, it was one of the first specialist firms to support offshore operations in the North Sea.
Industry
Background
On/Off-Shore Well Head
& Valve Services
Today the firm is known as Edeco
Petroleum Services Limited and
forms part of the Simmons Group
of Canada, which offers services
such as oil and gas drilling, workover
and well servicing, industrial drilling,
pipelines and underground storage.
Geographic
Western Europe
Type
SME
Key Challenges
• Minimise downtime
during server changeover
• Ensure uptime and
business continuity
using remote monitoring
Services Delivered
• Server upgrade
• Remote managed service
Edeco is headquartered in Castle
Donington, with a branch devoted
to pressure systems based in Great
Yarmouth, Norfolk.
First steps
The first contact between Edeco
and Onyx IT came during 2009,
when an Onyx telemarketing
campaign sparked the interest of
Graham Lincoln, Pressure Systems
Division Manager at the Great
Yarmouth branch.
Graham had realised that both
Edeco’s existing server and its IT
support arrangements needed
revision. “For years, we’d had an
informal arrangement with a sole
trader, who provided our first server
– in the days when IT was young!”
he recalls. “But as time went on,
I had less and less faith in him.
Everything was reactive rather than
proactive, and we never seemed to
have enough control. Our parent
company had set up an ongoing
arrangement with another provider,
and I thought it was time we did
the same.”
Edeco has grown from three
workstations in the early days to
12 today, and is genuinely dependent
on IT being available. “I don’t think
we could do without our server –
things would just grind to a halt,”
says Graham. “You don’t realise how
much you rely on your computers
until they do go down. Losing
email, for example, would cause
us great problems.”
“Computers are very important
for the ‘sharp end’ of our business,
which is managing the schedules of
engineers working offshore,” he adds.
“We have to keep track of timetables,
locations, jobs, holidays and so on.”
Onyx submitted a proposal, with
prices that were in line with those
being paid by Edeco’s head office,
so the Great Yarmouth branch went
ahead with the commissioning of
a new server.
Installed in a morning
Graham was advised by Onyx that
the installation and changeover for
Edeco’s new server would take
around two hours. But having
suffered much longer downtime
in similar situations in the past,
he found that prediction a little
hard to accept. “I really didn’t
believe it,” he admits. “To be honest,
I’d heard it all before. We’d had
engineers offering to start at 6pm,
when we weren’t working – but they
were still going at 6pm the following
day. There had always been
‘unforeseen problems and delays’.
With Onyx, we were up and running
again by mid-morning. It was
very impressive.”
The key to such a rapid changeover
is Onyx’s approach to
commissioning, which involves
setting up and fine-tuning as much
as possible ‘on the bench’ back at
Onyx HQ for around two weeks
before installation. “With the right
approach and organisation, it's
possible to configure most aspects
of a server before it arrives at a
client,” confirms Chris Burke of
Onyx. “It minimises the amount of
downtime for our clients during
commissioning, and ultimately
reduces the cost, since we can
often avoid the need for
out-of-hours installations.”
In addition to the hardware
purchase, Edeco also opted for a
managed service agreement, under
which Onyx carries out continuous
monitoring and maintenance of the
server. Remote-working technology
means that Onyx’s engineers can
spot and address minor issues as
soon as they arise – often before
Edeco staff even notice them –
all without having to physically
visit Edeco’s premises. “Onyx being
able to log in remotely and fix
things before we even know
they’re wrong is a great advantage,”
confirms Graham.
Proactive suggestions
Graham also appreciates the
strategic thinking and proactivity
offered by Onyx. “Another great
thing is that Onyx will come to us
with suggestions for things we
could do,” he says. Improvements
to backup, connectivity and internet
access are all being discussed.
100% uptime
At the time of writing this case
study, Edeco’s server had achieved
100% uptime, thanks to Onyx’s
proactive remote monitoring.
“Since we had the new server, it’s
been noticeably more reliable,”
comments Graham.
Overall, Edeco are delighted with the service they’ve received from
Onyx. “The server installation has been the highlight of our first year’s
support agreement, but by no means the only impressive achievement,”
says Graham. “The eagerness and ability of Onyx’s support staff to
tackle hardware and software problems remotely has been a revelation.
We used to have to wait hours, if not days, to get niggling problems
attended to. Now we have a very impressive rapid response, with a high
success rate. ‘I’m sure that we will enjoy Onyx’s support for many years
to come, and I highly recommend them.”
Contact Us
Chris Burke, Director
chris.burke@onyx-it.co.uk
100 Hellesdon Park Road,
Norwich, NR6 5DR
T 01603 414142
www.onyx-it.co.uk
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