Chris Marshall (blueAPACHE)
Managed service provider (MSP) blueAPACHE has been contracted to help handle the IT systems of Victorian-based family service organisation Berry Street.
The family services organisation has a workforce of 1,400 employees and provides a range of support services for over 40,0000 children, young people and families. Some of this support includes foster care, therapeutic programs, family violence and support services, as well as its specialist independent secondary school Berry Street School.
Under the contract, blueAPACHE will be responsible for managing the IT infrastructure of the organisation.
The family services organisation went through onboarding during the start of COVID-19 lockdowns for the MSP’s emPOWER Managed Services platform, bringing management for help desk, network, server, desktop, security, disaster and mobility solutions to the organisation.
The MSP also brought 4G connectivity and devices to 24 sites for education and entertainment purposes through its Connectivity in a Box offering, which offers devices, data and a network on a per month rental basis.
Following on from these overhauls, Berry Street is looking to work with blueAPACHE to undergo a full IT transformation. Plans for this are already in motion, according Chris Marshall, founder and managing director of blueAPACHE.
“We’re now putting in place a technology transformation roadmap taking legacy information to the cloud providing disaster recovery as a service, updating their security posture and migrating apps to a hosted private cloud,” he said.
“Our total focus is on delivering the outcomes. These outcomes aren’t just measured in IT terms but also in terms of improved safety of vulnerable children and their families.”
The decision to go with blueAPACHE came after a market review, which saw the MSP come out on top for its work in the not-for-profit sector, and its range of solutions, provided through its emPOWER platform, proved to be the most appealing.
Berry Street also needed to provide a suite of IT services for clients in residential facilities, including high bandwidth connectivity for access to learning and entertainment applications.
“We wanted to work with an organisation which was highly regarded in the not-for-profit space, held accountability in high regard and could help us transform and modernise our IT environment,” said Neelu Kaur, head of IT at Berry Street.
“During the last few months, we have built a partnership based on trust and successful delivery of innovative solutions.
“BlueAPACHE has more than delivered on what they promised and as a result we now see them as a managed services partner who we’re looking to engage for guidance on our overall IT transformation.”
