One network across four offices for a regional builder.

A construction company with offices in Southport, Robina and two Toowoomba locations had set each one up on its own, and files moved between them as email attachments and on USB drives. We built site-to-site VPNs between the four offices, standardised the firewalls and Wi-Fi, and gave project managers remote access to the shared drives and estimating software from a site cabin.

Four separate setups

Nothing connected the four offices.

Each site had its own ISP, firewall and Wi-Fi, and no identity was shared between them. A project manager working across two offices carried two sets of credentials and moved files by hand.

A different firewall at each site

One site had a current firewall, another had a consumer-grade router, and the other two sat somewhere in between. An incident at the weakest site would have had an open path to the other three.

File sharing by email and USB

Drawings, estimates and project documents moved between sites as email attachments or on USB drives, so several copies of each file existed and the one open on screen was not always the latest.

Remote access that rarely worked

Project managers working from site cabins could not reliably reach head-office systems. The estimating software could not be opened from a laptop, and each shared drive could only be reached from inside the office that held it.

Site-to-site VPNs

Matching firewalls and VPN tunnels link the four offices.

We put matching firewalls into each office, built site-to-site VPNs between them, and consolidated Internet termination so traffic between sites travels over encrypted tunnels.

Traffic between the offices stays off the public Internet, and the firewall configuration is the same at all four sites.

Managed Wi-Fi

Each office has managed Wi-Fi with a separate visitor network.

Subcontractors and surveyors visiting an office join the visitor network, which has no route to staff devices or the shared drives.

The access points are managed centrally, so the same wireless settings apply at all four sites.

Remote access

Project managers reach the shared drives from a site cabin.

Project managers now have secure remote access to the shared drives, the estimating software and the PM tools they use daily, from the Southport office or a Toowoomba site cabin.

Each person has a single set of credentials that works at every office and over the remote connection.

After the project

Project files sit on a shared drive reachable from all four offices.

Each person signs in once, at any office or from a site cabin, and reaches the same drives and estimating software.

Files no longer travel by email or USB

Drawings, estimates and PM documents live in the shared environment and are edited there, so the copy a project manager opens from a site cabin is the current one.

The same firewall rules at every office

Each office runs the same firewall configuration, Wi-Fi segmentation and endpoint protection, and an incident at one site no longer has a route into the others.

A documented build for the next office

The firewall, Wi-Fi, identity and drive configuration is documented, and a new office is set up to the same design.

Tell us how many offices you run.

We can join them with site-to-site VPNs, matching firewalls and shared drives.

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