Aspen Surgical is a leading worldwide manufacturer of surgical disposable products based in Caledonia, Michigan. Formerly a business unit of Hillrom, the company was acquired by Audax Private Equity with plans to grow through acquisitions. The carve-out required Aspen Surgical to separate its IT infrastructure from its former parent and stand up a new technology environment of its own, working with its internal IT team and completing the move before a transitional services agreement expired.

Audax Private Equity acquired Aspen Surgical from its former parent, Hillrom. As a newly independent business, Aspen Surgical had to separate its IT infrastructure from Hillrom and build a new technology environment that could scale quickly as the company grew through acquisitions.

The scope went well beyond new servers. Approved data had to be migrated, firewalls replaced and security services implemented. The company also needed to move from one Office 365 tenant to a new one without disrupting end users.

Audax and Aspen Surgical wanted a partner that could help the internal IT team establish the new infrastructure, provide ongoing support, and plan for future acquisition activity. Everything had to be completed before the transitional services agreement expired, which put a hard deadline on the entire program.

Thrive's engineering team met with Aspen Surgical's internal IT department to develop a highly detailed plan for the transition to the new environment. Alongside the server and data migration, the plan covered the move from the existing Office 365 tenant to a new one, sequenced to keep downtime for end users to a minimum.

Thrive deployed new computers and put a wide range of security features and services in place, including SIEM/SOC monitoring, NextGen endpoint security (EDR), vulnerability scanning, end-user security training and phishing simulation. Firewalls were replaced as part of the build.

The new infrastructure runs on ThriveCloud, Thrive's private cloud platform, chosen as a scalable foundation the company can rely on as it grows through acquisitions. Thrive's data backup and disaster recovery services are in place to minimize downtime should a catastrophic event occur, and third-party patching and advanced endpoint security round out the coverage against cyber threats.

Support did not end with the deployment. Thrive continues to provide multi-site on-premises infrastructure support for the ISP, firewall and switching, a helpdesk for end users and ongoing Office 365 management. Aspen Surgical's internal IT team has full access to The Thrive Platform, powered by ServiceNow, so both teams can share cases, communicate quickly and resolve IT issues.

• Carve-out from Hillrom completed on time and on budget, ahead of the transitional services agreement expiry
• Servers, approved data and the Office 365 tenant migrated to the new environment with minimal end-user downtime
• SIEM/SOC, NextGen endpoint security (EDR), vulnerability scanning, security training and phishing simulation deployed
• ThriveCloud private cloud gives a scalable platform that has supported further expansion and add-on investments
• Thrive helpdesk, Office 365 management and multi-site infrastructure support continue after deployment
• Internal IT shares cases with Thrive through The Thrive Platform, powered by ServiceNow, for fast resolution