MARBLE ARCH CONSULTING
OUR WORK
At Marble Arch Consulting, we understand the complexities of change our clients face day-to-day.
We take the time to understand the requirements and challenges of our client's landscape, risk’s and opportunities to enable us to tailor an engagement approach to deliver the best possible outcomes.
PERU
Marble Arch was tasked with designing and delivering a secure communications solution to enable remote mining operations for a global mining corporation. Understanding the unique security and availability for mining technology systems, including environmental conditions, lack of existing infrastructure, and the need for real-time operations of Industrial and Control systems, Marble Arch engaged with the customer in an initial feasibility study, presenting back solution options, including technical and commercial dependencies for business approval.
Leveraging our in-depth communications and security expertise, Marble Arch then designed and delivered a remote mining solution which provides highly resilient secure communications of a remote mining operation to the country’s capital city. This solution ensured seamless communication between the remote site and the central headquarters, replicating the on-site operational experience to a more convenient location. The solution extended remote control and visibility, such as CCTV, to a centralised and populous location.
The centralised mining operations solution enabled a number of key business outcomes;•
1. Centralised key operational resources to a populated city location, reducing travel expenditure and resource management complexities for the isolated location.
2. Improved safety of operational resources by leveraging remote-control and automation from a central location.
3. Reduced downtime due to resource availability, illness or other unexpected personnel circumstances.
Marble Arch's success in delivering this project can be attributed to their collaborative approach and commitment to innovation within our customers. We worked closely with the client throughout the project, from initial concept through to design and final implementation, ensuring that the solution met all operational requirements and could adapt to future needs. Our ability to integrate cutting-edge technology with practical, on-the-ground solutions demonstrates our expertise and dedication to client success. By providing a reliable and secure communication framework, Marble Arch not only enabled remote mining operations but also set a new benchmark for operational efficiency in the region.
BACKUP TRANSFORMATION PROGRAM
Marble Arch project team was engaged to deliver the replacement of Microfocus Data Protector, an aged and unsupported tape-based backup platform with a modern disk-based Commvault platform, providing increased performance and resilience.
The project addressed:
1. Stakeholder engagement, requirements gathering and validation, and solution architecture for the global Commvault platform.
2. Detailed design, with a focus on redundancy and security, for 12 individual sites across four global regions, procurement of required hardware, build and rigorous testing prior to formal release.
3. Over 500 servers and 200TB of separate unstructured data were migrated from the Data Protector platform to the new Commvault solution.
4. Customer stakeholders now have modern features such as point-in-time restorations, full virtual server restoration, application-aware backup services, and bare metal restoration at their disposal should they ever need it.
5. The Commvault platform has delivered increased visibility and performance of backup operations thanks to modern baseline reporting, with active compression and deduplication processes saving more than 90% of the total backup footprint.
QUEENSLAND MINING COMPANY
A Queensland mining company faced severe operational risks due to its Primary Data Centre (PDC) being a single point of failure. This risked prolonged production downtime for critical systems like SCADA, Mine Control, Digital Radio, and Logistics. Additionally, the convergence of IT and OT environments posed risks of cross-impact failures, necessitating urgent segregation.
Marble Arch Consulting (MAC), with its expertise in the mining sector, was entrusted to lead a crucial project that aimed to enhance operational resilience by transitioning essential services to a Secondary Data Centre (SDC).
The project's initiation involved a comprehensive review of compute and network infrastructure, identifying services suitable for relocation to the SDC and those requiring expansion. This meticulous assessment formed the basis for MAC's robust infrastructure blueprint for the SDC, which integrated new Dell compute and storage hardware with Cisco networking solutions. The network topology was overhauled to ensure a seamless failover to the SDC in case of PDC failure, with the WAN link optimised for enhanced redundancy.
The Secondary Data Centre project, a testament to its success, effectively mitigated the risks associated with the PDC, ensuring uninterrupted operations during potential failures. The segregation of IT and OT workloads further fortified operational reliability and security. Post-deployment, all critical workloads were seamlessly migrated to the SDC, facilitating a necessary 24-hour total outage at the PDC for essential upgrades.
Building on this success, MAC replicated the SDC solution at a second mine site in Australia, reaffirming its capability to deliver scalable and resilient infrastructure solutions.
Overall, MAC's intervention mitigated critical risks and elevated operational efficiency, setting a benchmark for proactive infrastructure management in the mining sector.