All case studies

Roulettes Tavern & PALS — a 20-year partnership delivers an end-to-end technology refresh for a 365-day venue, migrated with no unscheduled downtime

Otaris replaced an end-of-life server running a 365-day venue's H&L point-of-sale and remote desktop with a brand-new HP Enterprise server, built and operated as an on-site private cloud on VMware — migrating the entire environment one machine at a time during a quiet window with no unscheduled downtime, and delivering 99.99% uptime.

Book a free consultationMore case studies
Roulettes Tavern & PALS — a 20-year partnership delivers an end-to-end technology refresh for a 365-day venue, migrated with no unscheduled downtime — Otaris Hospitality & Retail Liquor — Pub, restaurant, sports bar, beer garden, gaming room and bottle shop (single owner — Fun Trading) case study
Industry
Hospitality & Retail Liquor — Pub, restaurant, sports bar, beer garden, gaming room and bottle shop (single owner — Fun Trading)
Team size
14 users
Location
Parafield Airport, SA
Plan
Fortress
Platform
On-site HP Enterprise server + VMware + virtualised SQL (H&L) + on-premise Remote Desktop + HPE Aruba network + Cisco router with 4G failover + Duo MFA + ThreatLocker
Compliance
Essential Eight
Trigger
Client since 2006 · Last refresh 2024

Meet the client

Roulettes Tavern and PALS (Parafield Airport Liquor Store) are two businesses under one owner, operating side by side at Parafield Airport. Roulettes is a full hospitality venue — an all-day dining restaurant, front and sports bar, beer garden and gaming room — open seven days a week, 365 days a year, with long trading hours. PALS is the attached bottle shop. Both run on the same core system, and both depend on technology that simply cannot stop: tills, the kitchen, the gaming room and the liquor store all need to keep trading every day of the year. This is a business that has trusted Otaris for over 20 years, through many technology refreshes — a partnership built on Otaris understanding exactly how the venue runs and what it needs to keep running.

What they were up against

External

The server in the office had reached end of life and needed replacing. It ran the heart of the operation: the SQL database behind their H&L software — the system that runs the restaurant, pub and liquor store — together with an on-premise Remote Desktop environment that staff log into for their Windows desktops. Because Otaris monitors and plans this client's infrastructure proactively, the end-of-life server hadn't been left to fail; there was plenty of lead time to plan a replacement properly.

Internal

The real concern for the owners wasn't the hardware — it was the migration. What would moving to a new server actually involve, and would it cause downtime to a business that trades every single day? That uncertainty is something many businesses feel about any major upgrade: the fear that "doing the work" means the tills go quiet and customers are turned away. For a 365-day venue, even a short unplanned outage during trade is lost revenue and lost goodwill.

Otaris is a cloud-first business — but cloud-first should never mean cloud-always. Sometimes the right answer for a client is a genuine on-site server, run with the discipline and resilience of cloud, but kept on the premises for good reason. And no client should have to accept disruption to their business as the price of keeping their technology current. The right partner can modernise the platform and protect the trading day at the same time.

How we stepped in

With more than 20 years supporting this venue, Otaris knew the operation intimately — the H&L dependency, the seven-day trading pattern, and the absolute requirement to keep the business running through any change. Two factors made an on-site server the correct choice rather than a full cloud migration: the requirements of the H&L software at the centre of the business, and the reality of running 365 days a year with long opening hours, where local performance and independence from an internet link matter. So the plan was to give the venue its own private cloud — an on-site server engineered and operated like a cloud platform — and to carry out the entire migration with no unscheduled downtime, using a maintenance window in a quiet trading period and a mitigation process that kept the business running throughout.

What we delivered

  1. New on-site HP Enterprise server, run like a private cloud

    Replace the end-of-life server with a brand-new HP Enterprise server backed by a 5-year next-business-day hardware warranty, virtualised with VMware so the environment is run with the resilience and flexibility of cloud while staying on the premises for the H&L and trading-hours reasons above.

  2. Virtualised SQL (H&L) and on-premise Remote Desktop

    Virtualise the SQL server behind the H&L software that runs the restaurant, pub and liquor store, alongside an on-premise Remote Desktop server. Staff sign in to a Windows desktop that behaves like a cloud desktop but actually lives in the office — and key staff can securely work remotely from the same environment.

  3. Migration with no unscheduled downtime

    Pre-build the new server in full, then move the virtual machines across one at a time, unchanged, during a scheduled maintenance window in a quiet trading period. Running on VMware made this possible: machines could be migrated as-is rather than rebuilt, so a mitigation process kept the business trading throughout and there was no unscheduled downtime.

  4. On-site and off-site backups

    Back up the virtual machines on site to network-attached storage (NAS), and copy those backups off site — so the business is protected against both day-to-day issues and a site-level event.

  5. Network refresh

    Refresh the network with HPE Aruba switches and access points, plus an on-site Cisco router with 4G failover so the venue stays connected if the primary internet link drops.

  6. Security and compliance — Duo MFA and ThreatLocker

    Even with their own on-site private cloud, keep the environment fully compliant: Duo multi-factor authentication protects remote access to meet cybersecurity requirements, and ThreatLocker application whitelisting on the server meets Essential Eight requirements.

The cost of inaction

For a venue trading 365 days a year, technology is not a back-office convenience — it is the business. If the end-of-life server had been left to fail, or if a migration had been handled clumsily, the consequences would have landed straight on the trading floor: tills down, the H&L system unavailable across the restaurant, bar, gaming room and bottle shop, and customers turned away during service. The owners' real exposure was the migration risk itself — the very real possibility that "upgrading" would mean lost trade. And without proper on-site and off-site backups and modern security, a single hardware fault, cyber incident or site event could have taken a seven-day operation offline for far longer than any hospitality business can absorb.

Before and after

Before
After
  • End-of-life office server running the SQL/H&L database and Remote Desktop
    Brand-new HP Enterprise server on a 5-year next-business-day warranty, virtualised with VMware
  • Single ageing server — limited resilience
    On-site private cloud — SQL/H&L and Remote Desktop virtualised, run with cloud-grade discipline
  • Uncertainty and fear of downtime from any upgrade
    Migration completed with no unscheduled downtime, in a maintenance window during quiet trade
  • Backup arrangements tied to ageing hardware
    Virtual machines backed up on site to NAS and copied off site
  • Ageing network hardware, no failover
    HPE Aruba switches and access points + Cisco router with 4G failover
  • Remote access without modern MFA
    Duo MFA on remote access — cybersecurity requirements met
  • Traditional security posture
    ThreatLocker application whitelisting on the server — Essential Eight requirements met
  • No defined resilience target
    99.99% uptime — no more than 52.6 minutes of downtime per year, well in excess of the 99.9% SLA

Where they are now

The refresh modernised the entire technology stack without costing the business a single hour of unscheduled trade. By pre-building the new server and moving the virtual machines across one at a time during a quiet window, Otaris turned what the owners feared would be a disruptive upgrade into a non-event — the tills kept ringing, the kitchen kept cooking, and the bottle shop kept selling. The venue now runs on a new HP Enterprise server with a five-year warranty, its SQL/H&L workload and Remote Desktop environment virtualised on VMware and operated as a private cloud, with on-site and off-site backups, a refreshed HPE Aruba network, 4G failover, Duo MFA and ThreatLocker keeping it both resilient and compliant.

The way the infrastructure has been built and is operated delivers 99.99% uptime — four nines, meaning no more than 52.6 minutes of downtime across an entire year, comfortably in excess of the 99.9% service-level agreement. For a business that trades 365 days a year, that reliability is the whole point.

This engagement tells two stories Otaris believes matter. First, cloud-first does not mean cloud-always: where there is a legitimate reason — here, the H&L software's requirements and a 365-day trading pattern — the right solution is a genuine on-site server, engineered and run with the resilience of cloud. Second, modernising your technology does not have to mean downtime: with the right experience and the right approach, even a full server migration for a seven-day venue can be completed with no unscheduled disruption to the business. After more than 20 years and many refreshes, that combination of judgement and execution is exactly why Roulettes and PALS keep trusting Otaris with the technology their business runs on.