There are many advantages and cost savings moving workloads from On-Premise to the Cloud, but the most significant is shifting Capital Expenditures to an Operating Expense.

CHALLENGE

Law Firms’ increased security demands required a safer server and backup system from current on-prem environment.

The Law Firm started with an On-Prem solution. Local PC’s were connected to local server which provided 2 of their key business applications – Practice Master and Hot Docs. As the need for greater security increased, moving their business servers and backups to an offsite, data center was suggested as an ideal solution. Hoping to decrease their vulnerability to malware and hacking, the Law Firm had previously replaced all their endpoints with a different platform. These machines were configured with Windows RDS and a VPN connectivity to their offsite Data Center to conduct normal business operations. The Windows RDS on these machines provided for many compatibility and connectivity issues. The VPN between the Main Office in San Jose and the Data Center in 30 miles northeast provided for some latency challenges. Using a CUPS protocol, printing to their printers in San Jose was very limited to basic printing functions – Printing Duplex successfully was infrequent.

Overall, the Law Firm was averaging 4-5 support calls a day costing time and productivity. Additionally, their Infrastructure was outdated, and server failure was becoming a major concern since there was no redundancy or business continuity plan in place.

SOLUTION

To future proof their technology while optimizing performance and improving productivity. MS WVD in Azure was recommended to meet all business concerns and objectives.

Understanding Client Needs

ComputerLand took a systematic approach to understanding the Law firm’s business objectives and their existing IT environment. This included an assessment of their current systems, physical space limitations and overall investment. It was also important to minimize any potential downtime and migration to ensure a smooth transition to the new solution.

Our recommendation for moving to MS WVD Azure was because it eliminated the cost of their Data Center, as well as providing:

• – High productivity
• – Enhanced scalability
• – Increased availability
• – Faster disaster recovery
• – Effective backup storage
• – Advanced data security

Faster Performance and Stability

ComputerLand designed a fluid IT environment for the Law Firm around Microsoft WVD in Azure consisting of:

• – HP devices to provide seamless compatibility
• – Increased Comcast bandwidth to improve latency issues
• – Migration from Gmail to MS M365 and Exchange Online

This environment ensured every user is operating on the latest version of software while providing collaboration tools and an improved remote work environment as an added feature.

Improved Productivity

The Firm has seen a 50% increase in productivity. Support calls have decreased by 90%, Microsoft WVD has been stable, and the fine tuning of resources needed is now accomplished in matter of minutes. These improvements have allowed more work to be accomplished in a shorter period of time. They now have the capability to take on more clients and confident they can manage increased workloads to continue to grow their business.

Backup and Disaster Recovery

With Azure’s built-in disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS), Azure Site Recovery offers ease of deployment, cost effectiveness, and dependability. The failover and recovery processes through Site Recovery help keep the Law Firm’s applications running in the event of planned and unplanned outages, mitigating their Business Continuity concerns.

RESULTS

Lower Costs for Future-Ready Tech

• – Cost Savings – shifting expenses to a monthly recurring model
• – Increased stability of business applications and improve overall performance
• – Reduced Physical Space Needs – no longer need an offsite datacenter and savings reallocated to cover half the monthly Azure costs
• – Move to MS M365 & Exchange Online keeps users on latest version with a consistent process for future updates and upgrades and allows the Firm more options to access email remotely from multiple devices

CONCLUSION

ComputerLand Equips Law Firm for Success with Scalable, Futureproof Environment

The Firm’s top priority is the confidentiality of its client’s information. Our mission was to provide a cloud solution that would ensure the security and accessibility of this data while improving productivity, and simultaneously building a business continuity plan.

MS Virtual Desktop in Azure delivers a high-performance data management solution that helped the Firm reduce costs, improve productivity and deliver an adaptive IT infrastructure to meet the needs of today, as well as those of tomorrow.

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