Infrastructure and Cloud
What Needs to Work Every MorningServers, cloud, identities, workstations, email, and phone systems. This layer remains invisible as long as it’s up and running: no one will congratulate you for an email system that works. We build your IT infrastructure to remain invisible, and we’ll be there the day it’s no longer invisible.
It's never the day you expected
IT infrastructure doesn’t break down all at once. It deteriorates over the course of years without warning, and then it delivers the bill on a Tuesday morning, just as everyone is arriving.
A server is reaching the end of its support life. No one knows exactly what is running on it anymore: a management application, a file-sharing service, and two automated processes written by someone who has left the company.
We're not replacing it, because we don't know what we might break.
The bill for the cloud has doubled in eighteen months. No new services have been added, and no teams have grown. Three servers sized “just to be safe” run day and night, and a backup system preserves everything from the very beginning.
It cloud isn’t expensive. It’s not watching it that costs money.
The backup runs every night, and the status has been "green" for two years. It has never actually been restored: on hardware other than the original, with a stopwatch, and up to the point of opening a file.
A backup that hasn't been restored is a possibility, not a guarantee.
None of these three situations can be resolved by buying another server or signing up for another subscription. They are resolved by deciding where each workload resides, who monitors it, and who responds when it goes down —and then by writing the code to do so, before you need it.
Three floors, but only one is visible
Your employees only set up one workstation. Behind the scenes, two other floors have to keep running; all three rely on a directory, and someone has to keep an eye on the whole system when no one else is thinking about it.
The top section isn’t that department: the web CRM, customer service, and sales processes are handled by Business Solutions, all under one roof. The key here is that this section has a solid foundation—and that on the day a laptop is stolen on a train, a single decision is all it takes to cut off all access to it.
What we're installing, floor by floor
Three projects that are all different, and that are never handled in the wrong order: you don't set up a telephone system based on a directory that hasn't been updated.
"Why does it take three days to process a newcomer's application?"
Email, files, meetings, mobility, managed workstations. A workstation shouldn’t be a project: enrollment, image, applications, and compliance rules are set up before the hardware arrives on the desk, and the user finds their environment ready when they log in.
This is also where business integrations are handled: merging two directories, two email systems, and two sets of files without causing anyone to lose a day's work .
"Who answers the phone when a customer calls?"
Integrating voice into a collaboration platform is simple in theory. In practice, however, it requires an operator, redundant session controllers, a numbering plan, emergency calls, call recording when required by law, and scripted call queues with people to answer the calls.
This is the only area where we’re not just system integrators: we developed NexTeams365 because our own customers lacked the tools they needed to operate their systems.
"Where does it need to run, and how much does it cost to keep it running?"
The question is almost never whether to move to the cloud. Some loads perform better there; others cost more each month than they did in a machine room. We evaluate each load individually, comparing the operating costs of cloud and that of your machine room listed next to each one, over a three-year period.
Then we build the chosen side, and we know how to build both: Azure on one hand, servers; on the other, storage and hyperconvergence—all the way down to the backup vault, which can no longer be modified.
Your CRM and your business applications: that’s our other department
Lambert Consulting has two, with separate teams. This one handles the infrastructure; Business Solutions handles what runs on top of it —customer relationships, service, sales processes, business dashboards, and the development of what doesn’t yet exist. When a project involves both—and that happens often—a single team takes charge.
What else is expected of us in addition to the project
Two tasks that are not construction projects and that must be managed separately: maintaining the environment over time, and delivering equipment that is already ready for use.
We hold on to what we have built—and what we have not built
Outsourcing your support doesn't make the problems go away. It puts second- and third-level support behind your team, so they stop spending their days putting out fires.
- A service contract with written deadlines, not just a handshake deal
- Monitoring, and the alerts that come to us first
- A periodic report: incidents, trends, and what needs to be corrected at the root
- Planned version upgrades, rather than forced ones
- On-call duty, when your work doesn't stop in the evening
The service is provided from French-speaking Switzerland, and the same people can come to your home. No one opens a ticket on the other side of the world.
The right equipment, prepared before you arrive
Buying equipment is easy. Sizing it for your environment, setting it up, and getting it up and running is a skill in itself. We are Dell Technologies Gold Partner, from the workstation to the datacenter.
- Computers, Monitors, Workstations, and Docking Stations
- Servers, Storage, Networking, Hyperconvergence
- Data protection, right down to the vault that can no longer be modified
- Configuration, image, and applications installed prior to delivery
- Delivery to your locations, both in Switzerland and abroad, including customs clearance
We also supply the equipment for the projects we undertake—session controllers, audio and video terminals—and we manage the warranties.
All of this hinges on a single identity
A well-maintained directory keeps the three floors simple: when an employee arrives, they have what they need; when they leave, they have nothing left. A neglected directory makes them all vulnerable at once— and that’s how someone gets into your home.
Only one place where an account exists
The identities of those cloud and those remaining on-site are synchronized in one direction only, service accounts are inventoried and assigned to a specific person, and when employees leave, their access is truly revoked—on the very same day.
Strong Authentication and Conditional Access
Who, using what device, from where, to achieve what. Written once as a rule, rather than granted a hundred times as an exception.
Conditional AccessBeing a director is not a permanent status
High privileges are granted for a specific task and for a specific duration; the action leaves a trace, and no one works all day with the power to erase everything.
Logs, retention, and what must not be disclosed
What you need to be able to show an auditor or a client who has commissioned the work. The responsibility, however, remains with your management: what is delegated is the technical work and the preparation of the evidence.
Data ProtectionWhat You Can Entrust to Us
Nine services available for order, ranging from design to the day-to-day management of IT infrastructure. Some can be done on their own, while others only make sense when combined—we’ll let you know before we provide a quote, not after.
The Pre-Move-In Inspection and the Order of Construction Projects
What happens where, what depends on what, and what happens at the end of the path. Then a target, and the order in which to reach it, along with what each step unlocks.
Migration toward Azure
Migration servers, applications, and data. The compatibility of each business application is verified with its vendor before any timeline commitments are made.
Microsoft 365, and the merger of two companies
The platform configured, the databases and files migrated, and coexistence during the transition. And the merging of two directories when two companies become one.
Servers, Storage, Virtualization
Servers, storage systems, networking, hyperconvergence. Installed, connected, documented, and accepted—at your location or in the data center of your choice.
Backup and Recovery Plan
The recovery plan tested in real life, on equipment other than the original, using a stopwatch and keeping a record of the results.
Telephony and Contact Centers
Numbering plan, number portability, redundant session controllers, call queues designed in collaboration with the business, terminals, and meeting rooms.
Workstation Fleet
Automated registration, image, applications, compliance rules, upgrade to the current version of Windows, and a managed fleet from a single location.
Identities, Access, and Traces
Directory, strong authentication, conditional access, on-demand administrative rights, logging, protection of sensitive data.
Engineer Staffing
A systems, network, or telecommunications engineer assigned to your team for a fixed term. We have been licensed to provide staffing services since 2018.
How Does a Rollover Work?
The process is the same whether you’re moving to cloud, switching storage plans, or reactivating a phone service. What changes is the duration; not the order.
The statement, and nothing else
How many users, how many workstations, across how many sites. What runs on what, what depends on what, what no longer has an owner. And the compatibility of business applications—requested from their vendors, not assumed.
This is the step that failed projects skipped.
The target, and how much it costs to keep it running
Two cost scenarios side by side, item by item, over three years. The purchase price carries less weight than the price in the tenth month, and it is the latter that determines the outcome.
This is where you make the only decision that is truly yours.
The construction, followed by the recipe
The target environment is set up alongside yours, without affecting it. It is then tested from the actual workstations and from each site, rather than from a well- connected office.
The switch, the old one left online
In waves, at predetermined points, the previous environment is preserved until you confirm it. The rollback is decided and tested before starting; it isn't improvised at two in the morning.
Maintenance
Monitoring, patches, version upgrades, and periodic review of policies. A point of contact who knows your system because they built it.
We don’t set a timeline before the review, and we’re wary when someone promises one. What pushes back a schedule is almost never a technical issue: it’s a business application vendor that takes three weeks to respond, or a dependency that no one had documented. That’s exactly what Phase 01 is designed to identify.
What We Don't Do
It’s better to say this before the first meeting rather than three months down the line. A service provider who claims to cover everything doesn’t cover anything properly.
We are neither a service provider nor a hosting provider
We connect your phone service to the carrier of your choice, and we build our infrastructure at Microsoft or at your location. We do not sell phone lines, and we do not operate a data center under our own name: you retain ownership of your subscriptions and contracts, and you can take them with you if you leave.
The offer is free; the statement takes work to prepare
You can request a quote with no obligation: you’ll receive a scope of work, a workload, a timeline, and a price. The as-built survey, however, is the first task of the project: it determines everything else, and is commissioned as such.
What We've Done So Far
Three papers have been published, out of the 784 implementations carried out since 1995. Some of the others have not been published.
Migration from servers to Microsoft Azure
Business applications inaccessible from outside the organization, servers at the end of their rope, and patient data subject to Swiss regulations. Compatibility verified with each vendor before any commitment is made; the migration carried out in parallel with business operations.
Operates 24 hours a dayTwo replicated, non-disruptive storage systems
Two Dell PowerStore systems synchronously replicated between two data centers, with automatic failover in the event of a site failure, and migration implemented without any service interruption.
Our own platformNexTeams365, to manage the voice
Designed and developed in-house because we lacked the necessary operational tools: to deploy, manage, and upgrade the telephony system on Teams without having to write scripts by hand.
Artificial intelligence is a cross-functional offering for both departments. Business results come first, architecture second—whether at Microsoft, on-premises, in a hybrid environment, or edge computing: we offer all artificial intelligence solutions.
Tell us what won't last another year
Describe your environment: what runs where, what happens at the end of the support period, and what has already given you a scare. We'll come back with a scope, a workload, a timeline, and specific deliverables.
Requesting a quote does not commit you to anything. The survey of the existing conditions and the design studies, however, are part of the scope of work. And if you prefer to retain control of the project, we’ll assign an engineer to your team: we’ve been authorized to provide engineering services on a contract basis since 2018.