Case Study: Ciao Bella

For most small businesses, disaster preparation takes a back seat to the daily pursuit of serving customers and growing the business. Thanks to Cloud Hosting from EarthLink Business, New Jersey-based Ciao Bella—a popular gelato, sorbet and frozen-yogurt maker founded in 1983—continued its nationwide operations during a two-week power outage caused by the October 2012 Superstorm Sandy.

Ciao Bella has a nationwide team of sales reps and distributors selling its brand of desserts. All employees access business-critical applications from central servers. As servers aged, performance began to drag, especially for employees based on the West Coast.

“We needed a total refresh. Our newest server was eight years old,” said Bob Serchuk, Controller, Ciao Bella.

Without an in-house IT staff, Serchuk spent a significant amount of his time troubleshooting technology, rather than on his main duties as Controller. On top of that, Ciao Bella faced frequent outages of its email, hosted with an external provider. Old hardware and unreliable email took a toll on business productivity.

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