Case study · Strata

Sorting out operations for a strata management firm.

A growing strata manager running StrataMax across 15 workstations was battling slow quarter-end performance, unreliable backups, and a tangle of printer and scanner issues eating into admin time. We rebuilt the platform so the software stopped being the limit.

The challenge

A platform running on fumes.

The firm had grown past what its existing setup could carry. StrataMax was hosted on hardware sized for an earlier, smaller business. Quarter-end was when it showed: slow reports, locks, timeouts, and late nights for the admin team.

- 01

Quarter-end stretched past 6 pm

Levy runs and end-of-quarter reporting were taking hours longer than they should have. The admin team had got used to staying late every quarter, and the partners had started treating that as normal.

- 02

Backups nobody trusted

Backups were running, but they'd never been fully restored. In a business that holds years of levy history and owner contact data, an unrestored backup is not really a backup.

- 03

A constant drag of small issues

Printers not scanning to folders, email signatures that wouldn't stay consistent, one workstation that kept logging people out. Individually small; collectively, a meaningful chunk of the admin team's week.

01 · StrataMax on proper cloud

Sized for the business it is now.

We moved StrataMax onto a cloud platform sized for the current workload, not the workload the firm had three years ago.

The move was planned around a quiet window so levy processing wasn't interrupted, and the client got the same StrataMax they knew, just faster and without the hardware sitting under someone's desk.

02 · Redundant internet

A second link so one outage isn't a bad day.

A second internet service went in alongside the primary, with automatic failover.

When the primary drops, and on a long enough timeline, every primary drops, the office keeps working, StrataMax keeps running, and owners keep getting through. Nobody has to ring someone about it.

03 · Standard build, tested backups

Fifteen workstations that behave the same.

Every workstation now runs from the same standard build, so a new hire gets a working machine in an hour rather than a day.

Automated daily backups of StrataMax data and the firm's document stores run in the background, and monthly test restores prove the backups actually work. The small drag of printer and workstation issues got cleaned up along the way.

The outcome

Quarter-end finishes when it should.

End-of-quarter reporting that used to push the admin team past 6 pm now finishes inside business hours. The platform isn't the bottleneck anymore.

- 01

Quarter-end back in business hours

Reports that used to stretch into the evening finish in the afternoon. The admin team gets their evenings back.

- 02

Internet outages stopped being events

Primary-link drops now fail over automatically. The office keeps running and owners keep being served.

- 03

Backups that mean something

Daily backups, monthly test restores, documented recovery. Years of levy history are actually recoverable, not just archived.

StrataMax slowing down at quarter-end?

Your platform shouldn't be the bottleneck.

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