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Charity improves service delivery with migration to Microsoft Azure hero image

Charity improves service delivery with migration to Microsoft Azure

Since starting out over 30 years ago, this charity remains the only UK organisation dedicated to providing specialist healthcare for young people. With over 20 specialist units across the UK, expert nurse teams and support staff, the charity is dedicated to supporting its patients from the moment they are diagnosed.

Technology used :

Microsoft Azure

What were the challenges?
  • Difficult to recover on-premises services in event of disaster
  • Some issues with backup
  • Security improvement required
  • Tight deadline for completion
What was the solution?
  • Migrate all servers to a  Microsoft Azure platform
  • Implemented enhanced disaster recovery and backup capabilities
  • Implemented enhanced security
What were the results?
  • A robust, reliable platform was implemented using Microsoft Azure
  • A dependable backup and disaster recovery capability has been enabled
  • Core infrastructure has been simplified
  • Enhanced security capabilities are available
  • The risk from cyber attack is reduced
  • The IT support burden is reduced
  • Outages have been minimised
  • There are numerous opportunities for future solution improvement in Azure

the background

Many of the charity’s patients rely on digital channels such as email or chat to reach out for help. To provide robust disaster recovery and backup capabilities, the charity decided to move its core infrastructure into a stable, resilient, and flexible environment in the Microsoft Azure platform.

Background
  • Existing infrastructure could be unstable
  • Flexibility of existing solutions was limited
  • Improved resilience was required
<p>Silversands was chosen as a partner to deliver the proposed project. The charity was well aware of our technical expertise and project management skills, having worked with us on previous Office 365 and SharePoint projects, and was happy to take our proposal forward.</p>

Silversands was chosen as a partner to deliver the proposed project. The charity was well aware of our technical expertise and project management skills, having worked with us on previous Office 365 and SharePoint projects, and was happy to take our proposal forward.

The solution

A five-week deadline meant we had to expedite the project, which required a hugely focused effort and close collaboration between ourselves and the charity. Weekly Microsoft Teams meetings, and the ability to discuss, share, and store documents in Teams enabled us to communicate quickly and easily. Our project manager worked closely with the charity to plan, track and monitor progress, to ensure the project was delivered effectively and with minimum business disruption.

A mid-project requirement to resolve a network issue interrupted the project for four days. To overcome this, we worked out of hours to avoid business disruption and ensure that the project was still completed on time.

Regular and open communication together with ongoing meetings allowed us to adapt quickly to any challenge, complete any identified additional work, and entirely focus on finding the best outcomes.

Solution
  • Design and configuration of Azure landing zone
  • Migrate all on-premises servers
  • Implementation of enhanced disaster recovery and backup capabilities
  • Implementation of enhanced security
<p>The project went really well.  I have a very high confidence in Silversands’ technical expertise. The technicians involved were all very committed and knowledgeable of their domain, and hugely flexible in accommodating our challenging situations.</p>
What did the client say?

The project went really well.  I have a very high confidence in Silversands’ technical expertise. The technicians involved were all very committed and knowledgeable of their domain, and hugely flexible in accommodating our challenging situations.

Business Solutions Manager, Healthcare Charity

the result

In just five weeks, Silversands moved the charity’s private cloud IT infrastructure to Azure, enabling secure remote data access and new reporting capabilities.

As well as moving and optimising the infrastructure, and enabling service improvements such as cloud backup, the opportunity was taken to increase the charity’s already stringent security measures further by enabling enhanced protection features available in Azure.

These changes were critical to protect the charity’s data, reduce the risk of cyber attack, and facilitate staff working from home. As a result, staff can access applications and data with greater security, to deliver the charity’s core activities without interruption.

The charity now has a resilient infrastructure with in-built DR and backup that requires less maintenance. Automated security patching frees up the IT team’s time to focus on other areas, while the organisation can confidently continue providing uninterrupted specialist care and support to its patients.

The success of this project is viewed by the charity as a stepping-stone, setting it up to take advantage of more Azure features in the future. The charity can now start to report on data, helping it work towards meeting its 2022 strategy with continued provision of personalised, high-quality holistic care for every patient.

Results
  • A robust platform has been implemented using Microsoft Azure
  • A dependable backup provides peace of mind
  • New disaster recovery options enable new opportunities for service continuity
  • The core infrastructure has been simplified
  • Enhanced security has been implemented
  • Outages have been significantly reduced
  • The IT support burden has been reduced
  • There are numerous opportunities for future enhancements