"What really stands out about Swiftcomm is their ability to solve problems in the most pragmatic and timely way possible. Jonathan and his team speak in the language of the customer, rather than baffling them with tech-talk. They react promptly and positively. They try and find solutions that suit both the business’s need and its budget. Swiftcomm provide a truly outstanding service"
John Hoskins - The Old Bridge Owner
The Old Bridge hotel is a handsome, ivy-clad, 18th century townhouse hotel. It sits on the banks of the River Great Ouse, but also on the edge of the town centre. Its atmosphere balances that of a professionally run' boutique' hotel and a relaxed, bustling inn; a popular destination for both the local community and visitors to the area. It has been privately owned by John and Julia Hoskins since 1994.
The Old Bridge Hotel has been a supported customer for multiple years. During this time, they have recently had numerous projects undertaken by Swiftcomm. The primary three projects included;
The Old Bridge had a Fujitsu server running Windows Server 2012 R2. Windows Server 2012 R2 will be out of extended support with Microsoft on 10th October 2023. Ahead of this date, we recommended life-cycling the server to ensure it stays reliable and secure for the foreseeable future.
The Old Bridge was running a legacy Panasonic phone system. Following the completion of the existing phone system contract, we recommended that we replace this with a Mitel MiVoice Office 250 system.
The Old Bridge previously had a 2G Wi-Fi solution installed but was struggling with some of the areas of the hotel not getting good coverage.
Swiftcomm have implemented each of these respective projects for the hotel over the past couple of years;
The Fujitsu server running Windows Server 2012 R2 was upgraded to a Dell PowerEdge T550 server running Hyper-V on Windows Server 2022. We initially migrated the Windows Server 2012 R2 virtual machine across to the new Windows server 2022 hypervisor with a plan to create two new Windows Server 2022 virtual machines. These new virtual machines will be a domain controller/file server and an application server for Microsoft Dynamics. Upon completion, the Windows server 2012 virtual machine will be decommissioned.
The server migration happened outside of working hours to avoid disrupting the hotels' day-to-day activities.
The Old Bridge had reached the end of its lease agreement with the existing telephone system/provide and was due a replacement system. Therefore, we opted for a Mitel MiVoice Office 250 system as it supports IP-based phones for the staff/reception and traditional single analogue phones used in the respective guest rooms.
This brought additional functionality through the new system and handsets and supported IP-based phone calls through SIP trunks.
The Old Bridge wanted to improve its Wi-Fi coverage across the hotel alongside having an isolated guest network. Therefore, we opted for 20x Unifi AC PRO wireless access points and 3x Unifi switches across the hotel. This Wi-Fi installation allowed us to provide sitewide Wi-Fi coverage for various staff devices such as desktops, laptops, tablets, and PDQ machines and provide a separate isolated, secured, bandwidth-restricted guest network for visitors of the hotel.
Working with the Old Bridge Hotel, we have undertaken multiple projects, and as a result, the hotel has benefited from the following;
