Legal Case Studies
Miller Hendry: Case Study
Sector/Main Activities:
Legal
Location:
Tayside and Strathearn, Scotland
The Background
Miller Hendry is a long-established legal practice which has served individuals and businesses in the Tayside and Strathearn area for generations. The firm has grown to be one of the larger legal practices in the area.
Miller Hendry contacted Capito as they were having issues with internal application performance. We undertook an analysis of their on-premises infrastructure and identified bottlenecks with the legacy storage that we initially proposed and installed/delivered. Miller Hendry were also keen to explore the benefits that Microsoft 365 could provide as they had quickly adopted Microsoft Teams at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
With the majority of staff working remotely, the on-premises data centre, virtual desktop and end user devices were no longer able to provide the users with the collaboration and communications required to operate effectively in this “work from home” environment.
The end user devices were due to be upgraded and it was agreed to replace the thin client devices with laptops for all users.
The Solution
Capito recommended that Miller Hendry adopt the Capito Technical Blueprint to replace their current legacy on-premises infrastructure.
This Technical Blueprint has been developed and refined by Capito using best-of-breed hardware, software, and cloud services to deliver additional performance for the internal business applications.
Migrating email to the Office 365 collaboration suite (including email, Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive) has provided users with seamless same sign-on access to cloud and on-premises data and applications from any approved device.
The legacy on-premises storage was replaced with a modern Pure Storage FlashArray to provide enhanced performance, ensuring the functionality of legacy applications would meet users’ requirements, whilst also allowing ease of admin for the IT team.
The existing thin clients were replaced with laptops for all users, allowing them to securely collaborate and communicate with colleagues and clients whilst having access to all required business applications and data from any approved device. In addition, all data was protected whether located in the cloud or on-premises.
To deliver this, Capito provided:
- Pure Storage FlashArray //X10
- Microsoft 365 Business Premium Licenses
- Veeam Office 365 Backup Software
Furthermore, a number of third-party products previously deployed at Miller Hendry were identified as being redundant since their functionality was already included in the licenses. This included antivirus software, email protection, and mobile device management for Apple and Android devices. Cancelling these subscriptions resulted in significant cost savings.
The Outcome
Capito’s Technical Blueprint has provided Miller Hendry with a scalable, and reliable solution which has the performance and growth to meet their current and future business requirements. Additionally, this comes at a price per user, which is fixed based on the number of users, and can be quickly expanded or contracted as the business requires.
The deployment of the all-flash Pure Storage FlashArray with sub-milliseconds latency ensured that the storage was no longer an issue for application performance. This has resulted in Miller Hendry staff being able to access client files much more quickly and reliably.
Thanks to Pure Storage’s cloud-like services, Miller Hendry will have access to any enhanced features and functions as they become available, as long as they maintain an active support subscription.
Synchronising the user identity with Azure enabled the user to have same sign-on secure multifactor authentication to all Office 365 applications, as well as third party applications in the future. This also enabled user self-service password resets, which improves user productivity whilst reducing the burden on the service desk to reset passwords.
Migrating the mailboxes to Office 365 (Exchange Online) allowed Miller Hendry to seamlessly build on the Microsoft Teams that they had hurriedly deployed at the start of the pandemic with minimal user disruption. Users are now able to use the gain many of the benefits of Microsoft Teams to improve both internal and client communications without the requirements for travel.
Deployment of the laptops with Windows 10 Professional allowed many of the in-built security features, such as disk encryption and antivirus, to be controlled from the Microsoft cloud. Additional services such as Auto-pilot and InTune included with the Microsoft 365 Business Premium licenses enabled the factory installed image to be customised without the need to re-image. Business applications were packaged and delivered using InTune, enabling the users to have the laptops, Office 365 Business applications (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and any additional business applications they required to be deployed and updated, without any dependency on the internal infrastructure.
Microsoft 365 Business Premium, including Office 365 is continually evolving and improving, allowing Miller Hendry to review and adopt these products as they require.
As a result, Miller Hendry has benefited from increased productivity and collaboration, cost savings, enhanced performance of legacy apps, and more efficiency overall.
“I am pleased to report that this project went to plan and was delivered according to the Scope of Work.
We were extremely reassured by the in-depth knowledge of the consultant, and the project was made easier by the use of Microsoft Teams (previously setup by Capito) as everyone was working remotely.
The feedback from the end users after receiving their laptops is that they 'love them' and we are delighted with the efficiencies brought by this new way of working.”
IT Director
Miller Hendry
