France Affiches: an on-site IT audit in Paris

France Affiches was founded in 1984 by Angelina Fontana and is today one of the leading independent large-format printers in France. It prints advertising posters, point-of-sale materials, signage and décor in offset and digital, for agencies, advertisers and media buyers.

The group is headquartered in Antony, in the Paris region, and has three production sites: Antony, Alcalá de Henares (Spain) and Vialonga, near Lisbon, operating since 1995.

Because a serious audit is not done over a video call. Only on site do you find the switch nobody documented, the temporary cable that became permanent, the gap between the network diagram and the reality of the rack.

Being there in person also raises the value of the recommendations. Without seeing the server room, a recommendation is a hypothesis. After following production and listening to the people who run the systems, it becomes a decision backed by cost and priority.

In the print sector this is decisive: large production files cross the network non-stop and the presses do not wait for a server.

Three things, always with evidence: which assets exist, what condition they are in and what risk they create for day-to-day operations.

Network infrastructure

• The real map The actual topology, not the one drawn years ago.
• Lifecycle Active equipment and its manufacturer end-of-support date.
• Traffic separation The boundary between production and the administrative area.
• Connectivity Internet access and links between locations.
• Firewall rules Old exceptions that are still open.
• Wireless Coverage, interference and saturation.
• Physical layer The cabling that supports everything else (networks and structured cabling).

Systems

• Servers and hypervisors Capacity, performance and pending patches (managed servers and virtualisation).
• Licences What is paid for versus what is used.
• Identities Excessive permissions and former employees' accounts.
• Endpoints Protection status of the workstations.
• Backups Running is not enough; they must restore. It is the only test that counts.

The deliverable

A written report in three columns: immediate risk, technical debt to schedule, and what is solid and needs no investment. The consultancy takes that picture and returns a plan with costs and sequence, not a shopping list.

We already serve many international organisations: embassies, public bodies, hotel groups, clinics and foreign subsidiaries in Portugal. From them we bring three habits: speaking to head office in head office's language, a single person accountable for the project, and response times committed in writing.

What is new is the direction of the work. Usually we support a foreign group's operation in Portugal; here, we are the ones going to Paris to work with the parent company. DataRoad's coverage now includes Paris.

DataRoad is a premium MSP headquartered in Alfragide, with support across Portugal. The core model is IT Unlimited: a fixed monthly fee, hours included rather than counted, and three plans, Essential (remote and telephone), Premium (unlimited on-site support) and Premium 365 (Premium plus nights, weekends and bank holidays).

• Prevention and helpdesk Preventive maintenance and user support, remote and on-site; 24/7 monitoring on Premium 365 only (managed user support).
• Servers Ongoing administration and virtualisation.
• Wireless networks business Wi-Fi 6 and 7.
• Security managed cybersecurity, EDR and managed firewalls.
• Cloud managed Microsoft 365.
• Data, voice and video Tested backups, phone systems and CCTV.
• External IT department IT outsourcing.
• Audit and consultancy To decide on the basis of what actually exists.

We work only under contract and directly with the end client, never as a subcontractor. We have 11 years in the market, 232 clients and Top 5% PME status according to scoring.pt. More on the model in IT Unlimited for a fixed monthly fee and on public procurement in IT for public bodies.

• RTP, Técnico, Faculdade de Medicina de Lisboa and SSAP: 24 public contracts
• Embassies and international bodies that trust DataRoad
• A website in five languages for international clients
• The infrastructure of six hotels between Restauradores and Rossio

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Do you operate across several sites, in Portugal or another European country, and want to know precisely what exists at each one? We audit network, security and systems on site and deliver a plan with costs and order of execution, the basis for managed cybersecurity and ongoing management. Request a no-commitment audit proposal.

More than 10 workstations · support contract · remote, on-site and telephone support.

Call +351 211 459 950 * or write to sales@dataroad.pt.

*Call to a Portuguese landline.