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DCAC case study: William Ryan Homes

DCAC and Microsoft Azure enable digital transformation at William Ryan Homes

On-premises hardware overdue for replacement

William Ryan Homes needed to replace its deteriorating legacy hardware, which was slowing down apps and causing delays in construction.

Migrating to Microsoft Azure with expert guidance

Denny Cherry & Associates Consulting (DCAC) helped William Ryan Homes convert on-premises servers and migrate data to Microsoft Azure.

Improving performance and eliminating frustration

With Azure, William Ryan Homes has a system that offers greater performance. Business can be executed without delay, saving money and satisfying staff.

A partner with deep technical expertise

Founded in 2012 by Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Denny Cherry, DCAC combines deep technical expertise, responsiveness, and resourcefulness to deliver reliable solutions and educate customers along the way. DCAC has been a Microsoft partner since 2016 and possesses Cloud Platform, Data Platform, and Data Analytics gold competencies. DCAC recently appeared in Inc. magazine's annual list of the 5,000 fastest-growing private companies in the United States.

DCAC’s Azure Planning Five-Day Implementation service helps companies plan their migration to Azure so they can benefit from its scalability, reliability, and agility.

Migrating to Azure with no downtime

The on-premises server critical to enterprise resource planning at William Ryan Homes was on its last legs, and the company’s SQL Server was out of support. When employees and clients started complaining about slow applications, information technology coordinator Peter Guzman knew it was time to go to the cloud.

“Our contractors couldn’t see what their next task was on the schedule, so they couldn’t move things around to reschedule vendors in accordance with construction,” Guzman said. “Everything was slow.”

For Azure hardware, DCAC proposed a terminal server, a web server, a database server, and a domain controller. For software, DCAC recommended Windows 2012 R2, as this would best accommodate William Ryan Homes’s primary application. DCAC could then move the application over to the terminal server. DCAC worked around the company’s Eastern Time, Central Time, and Mountain Time production schedules so contractors wouldn’t suffer further delays and anger customers. The entire migration was completed within three weeks with zero downtime.

“Denny and consultant John Morehouse just blew me away,” Guzman said. “They totally exceeded my expectations. Everybody loves the new system, even the CEO. It all looks the same, but it performs better, and we’re saving money because the system now works in accordance with construction.”

Customers can now see progress on their new homes online. Schedules are able to be kept, as contractors can now see their next task and manage subcontractors effectively. Administration can execute finances and contracts without delay. The transition was so seamless that after a software update changed the schema, Guzman hired Cherry to rewrite the SQL code. Guzman anticipated the job would take weeks. Cherry completed the task in three days.

“DCAC was thrilled to be able to help William Ryan Homes move this critical application to Microsoft Azure. By moving this application to Azure, we were able to resolve the performance issues the users were having while allowing it to grow with the business.”

—Denny Cherry, Owner and Principal Consultant, DCAC

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