Formed in 2003, Cilantro Engineering has become a leading contractor in the services industry. Cilantro Engineering specialises in mechanical, electrical and public health services, priding itself on providing a first-class service to include design, co-ordination, supply and installation of all engineering services. Their client base includes companies such as the Berkeley Group, Lend Lease, Ballymore Group, O’Shea and Mace – among others – delivering services within the London region and in Ireland.
Cilantro Engineering has worked on projects such as the Athletes’ Village for the 2012 Olympics and the nearby East Village neighbourhood, earning a reputation for providing quality craftsmanship. Current projects include South London’s Elephant Park and the Nine Elms corridor, the Dublin Landings project on the city’s waterfront, and Royal Wharf and City Island over in London’s Docklands.
Client brief
Cilantro Engineering required help with the rapid expansion of their London operation. They needed a reliable office setup with the flexibility to grow and also help with procuring, installing and maintaining computers and other hardware.
They needed to be able to access email and share files, drawings and architectural plans at their head office site, as well as at their project offices at construction sites around London.
Cilantro Engineering uses a number of specialist architectural and CAD software packages and needed somebody to liaise with software publishers and account managers on their behalf.
In addition, Cilantro wanted the ability to manage their files and data securely, allowing access to files only to those team members that needed it.
Plan IT Support’s services
When Cilantro Engineering first approached us in 2012, Plan IT Support installed a Windows SBS server running email, file-sharing functionality and local user accounts for each employee. Anti-spam email filtering and enterprise-standard anti-virus and malware protection was installed.
Remote teams at their construction sites across London were equipped with laptops, printers, site NAS drives and 4G internet access on a local network.
By 2016 Cilantro Engineering had expanded massively, and technology had since moved forward. Plan IT Support migrated Cilantro Engineering to Microsoft 365, moving their entire email and collaboration operation off-premises. Head Office and the project site offices now worked together using Microsoft’s suite of collaboration tools, with Teams, OneDrive and SharePoint becoming invaluable.
Their Head Office’s physical server setup was bolstered by the addition of a Windows Server 2016 Domain Controller, a database server to host their DBMS and a 10TB fileserver to handle the massive amount of model data generated by their design department. Cisco’s Meraki cloud networking system connected the project site offices to the network at Head Office, and also handles VPN access to users working remotely or from home.
Plan IT Support delivers an extensive support contract and service desk for Cilantro Engineering, covering their Head Office and all of their site project offices. Cilantro Engineering knows that they are just a phone-call or email away from dedicated, personal IT support from technicians that know their IT systems inside-out.
To see more examples of our work, take a look at our Chargecrest Asset Management case study.