Chateau de Courtomer, Normandy, France

Chateau de Courtomer

Chateau de Courtomer was built in 1789 on the foundation of the Baron of Couromer's 11th century medieval castle. It's location marks the front line of fighting in the Hundred Years War, where the kings of France fought Norman kings of England for control of the land. By the 1600s, the fortified structure of the castle was beginning to decline. Times had changed and it was no longer necessary to maintain thick walls and towers to fend off thieves and invading armies. The fortress castle was torn down in the 1700s and replaced with a grand Chateau designed in the image of Louis XIV's Palace of Versailles.

I was contacted by the owner of The Chateau in 2016 after the building was struck by lightning during a storm. Electricity surged through the walls and found it's way to an improperly grounded IT network cabinet in the basement. At the request of the owner I travelled to France and surveyed the damage. No equipment survived. Everthing would need to be replaced. I recommended improvements to the electrical and backup power systems to safeguard IT equipment from a repeat event. I also recommended that The Chateu be moved onto my company's managed services platform where it would benefit from a Cisco Meraki system retrofit.
Unique challenges (language barrier, sourcing materials, navigating customs, pulling cable through stone walls, WiFi and wireless signal coverage through stone walls, basements and attic spaces), creative solutions (ethernet over powerline), additional improvements over time (extending the network via fiber optic to other buildings on the estate), current state of operation (improved network capacity, hardware redundancy, independant monitoring points).