FBMC Case Study

Summary

FBMC is an employee-owned benefits plan administrator. The company offers complete, flexible employee benefits solutions for public and private organizations. In business for 33 years, FBMC operates its headquarters in Tallahassee, Florida and several other smaller field offices throughout the state.

IT Services and EDI Manager Glenda Atkinson is responsible for network administration and operation of the help desk and company IT infrastructure. Ms. Atkinson manages IT operations at company headquarters, field offices, and the data center in Tallahassee. The 50-server farm, which houses the company’s PBX and IVR systems, runs a Cisco-based network and custom-coded applications for most business and IT processes.

FBMC had a long-term IT hardware support problem—the need for cost-effective server maintenance. All but one server in the company data center was manufactured by Dell Computer. After the IT department bought servers from Dell, they were offered 3-year maintenance plans and 2-year extensions. However, at that time Dell would not provide maintenance when the servers went off-warranty after 5 years. Wanting to avoid buying new servers and increasing IT hardware costs, FBMC looked for a third-party vendor to provide needed maintenance services.