How We Stabilized a Manufacturer's IT After Their Previous Provider Left It in Pieces

An industrial graphics manufacturer in Central Illinois came to Facet after years with another IT provider. They assumed their systems were in good shape. Our assessment told a different story: an overall IT audit score below 50%, with security scoring below 25%. Failed servers, unfiltered internet traffic, cameras exposed to the public internet, and a half-finished Azure migration that was creating more problems than it solved.

Ten months later, every issue was resolved. The environment was fully cloud-hosted, properly secured, and running on Facet’s complete managed services and security platform.

This is what IT stabilization looks like when it’s done right.

What We Found: An Environment in Chaos

The client’s previous IT provider had started migrating their environment to Microsoft Azure but left the job incomplete. On-premises servers were still running services that should have been in the cloud. Security protections that any business needs — email filtering, endpoint encryption, dark web monitoring, employee training — were either missing entirely or half-configured.

Here’s what Facet’s on-site assessment uncovered:

Infrastructure Problems

• Two domain controllers had been offline and failing for over two years — well past the point where Active Directory could recover them normally
• VPN running through a single internet provider with no failover — one ISP outage meant no remote access
• Orphaned Azure resources still billing every month for virtual machines and disks nobody was using
• Azure VMs on pay-as-you-go pricing instead of reservations, causing both higher costs and hardware availability issues where a session host simply couldn’t start

Operational Issues

• 17 production printers configured with WSD ports — a protocol known to cause random offline status and stuck print queues. For a graphics manufacturer, printer problems are production problems.
• Every printer maintained individually on each virtual desktop host instead of managed centrally through Group Policy
• DNS, DHCP, directory sync, thin client management, and the network controller all still running on aging on-premises hardware despite the “Azure migration”

What We Did: A 20-Point Plan Executed in Phases

Facet’s engineering team built a prioritized remediation plan that addressed every issue found during the assessment. Each item was rated by impact level, scheduled with the client’s leadership team in advance, and executed in phases — with pilot testing before any change that could affect production.

Phase 1: Foundation Cleanup

We started by removing what was broken. The two failed domain controllers were cleaned out of Active Directory. Orphaned Azure resources that had been billing monthly for nothing were deleted. Stale firewall rules from services that no longer existed were removed.

Phase 2: Complete the Azure Migration

The previous provider had moved some workloads to Azure but left all the infrastructure services — DNS, DHCP, directory sync, thin client management, and the network controller — running on physical servers in the office. We deployed two new Windows Server 2022 domain controllers in Azure, migrated every service to the cloud, and decommissioned all on-premises server hardware. The migration wasn’t done until the old servers were actually off.

Each service migration was scheduled after hours and tested before cutover. Directory sync and thin client management were piloted with a test group first to confirm everything worked in the new environment before rolling out to the full team.

Phase 3: Close the Security Gaps

This phase addressed the below-25% security score:

• Deployed Duo MFA across Office 365, Azure Virtual Desktop, and VPN — starting with a pilot group before expanding company-wide
• Isolated guest WiFi onto its own dedicated network segment so visitor devices could no longer reach business systems
• Moved surveillance cameras onto a separate, isolated network and removed the public internet exposure entirely
• Routed all Azure internet traffic through a FortiGate firewall with web filtering, antivirus scanning, and intrusion prevention — traffic that had previously gone out to the internet with zero inspection
• Replaced the single-ISP Azure VPN with a FortiGate-based VPN running across two internet providers, so a single outage no longer meant losing remote access

Phase 4: Fix the Production Printers

All 17 printers were converted from WSD ports to static IP addressing, which eliminated the random offline and stuck queue issues. We then built centralized print management through Group Policy — printers mapped to users by security group, with correct defaults set for production printing. This replaced a setup where every printer had to be configured by hand on every virtual desktop host.

Phase 5: Deploy the Full Facet Security Suite

With infrastructure stable, we brought the client onto Facet’s full managed services agreement with complete security coverage — addressing every gap from the original audit:

• SentinelOne autonomous endpoint protection on every device, with AI-driven threat detection, ransomware rollback, and a ransomware warranty
• FortiGate next-gen firewall with security analytics, SD-WAN, gateway antivirus, web filtering, intrusion prevention, and application control
• Proofpoint Essentials email security with URL and attachment sandboxing, policy-enforced encryption, and data loss prevention
• Dark web monitoring scanning for compromised credentials 24/7 with immediate alerting
• Security awareness training and phishing simulations — establishing a baseline and ongoing education program where none existed before
• BitLocker endpoint encryption with AES-256 on all workstations and centralized key management
• Email cloud backup covering Exchange Online, SharePoint, and Microsoft Teams
• 24/7/365 monitoring with alerting, escalation, and real-time health visibility across every endpoint

The Results

Timeline: 10 months from initial assessment to project completion.

Azure costs: Facet cleaned up wasted resources and moved VMs to reserved pricing, then deployed improved Azure builds — all at no increase in monthly spend.

Printer issues: Resolved completely. The WSD-to-static-IP conversion and centralized Group Policy management eliminated the daily production disruptions.

What This Project Tells You About Switching IT Providers

If you’re considering a change from your current IT company, this project shows what a thorough transition looks like — and why it matters.

Your new provider should assess before they quote. A quick remote scan doesn’t catch failed domain controllers, misconfigured firewall rules, or cameras exposed to the internet. Facet’s engineers came on-site, examined the full environment, and found problems nobody knew existed.

Expect the unexpected. This client thought their Azure migration was complete. It wasn’t. Services were still running on old hardware, security was barely configured, and cloud resources were billing for nothing. A good IT partner will tell you the full picture honestly, even when it’s not what you want to hear.

A project like this typically involves $50,000–$100,000+ across multiple phases, depending on the size and condition of your environment. That’s a wide range because every network is different. The only way to get an accurate number is through an on-site assessment.

The goal isn’t just fixing problems — it’s building a security posture that holds up over time. This client didn’t just get their issues resolved. They got a fully managed IT partnership with 24/7 monitoring, ongoing security, and quarterly planning reviews.