WIREDGOV

Technology Migration to JADe Cloud Services and Microsoft Office 365 Decommission of physical on site servers – risk and power reduction Cost reduction – savings on server and backup cost

Background

The Chartered Quality Institute (CQI) is a registered charity that exists to benefit the public by advancing education in, knowledge of and the practice of quality in industry, commerce, the public sector and the voluntary sectors. It was incorporated by Royal Charter in 2006.

CQI were experiencing challenges with their email platform caused by ageing hardware and rapid growth of mail box and related data. The cost of storing and backing up their data was becoming prohibitive, and their reliance on physical on-premise servers represented a risk to organisational operations.

JADe worked with key stakeholders at CQI to identify the issues, risks and opportunities in migrating to a cloud based solution, and delivered a programme of work to realise the benefits of cloud based messaging services, with minimum disruption to staff

Solution

Leveraging CQI’s charitable status to benefit from the E1 version of Microsoft Office 365, JADe was able to implement the Enterprise level cloud platform for free.

A dedicated project team was deployed to plan and deliver the migration in a staged and fully managed approach, meaning that mailboxes were moved out of hours, with zero interruption to the business. The migration was invisible as far as staff were concerned; their Microsoft Outlook email client simply switched to Office 365 at the allotted time and all historical email was retained.

E1 includes a robust backup mechanism that allows for individual mail items to be restored, entire mailboxes to be archived and at least 90 days of data retention. Each user is allowed a huge 50GB mailbox and an Online Archive of another 100GB. Furthermore, the cost of backing this data up under the old model of traditional disk / tape / offsite could be retired, saving hundreds of pounds per month. Finally, additional services such as Skype for Business, File Storage, SharePoint and Video Conferencing are all included at zero cost, for later implementation

Benefits

The benefits to CQI are numerous for this “classic” cloud migration project:

- Removal of physical servers on site – cost and risk reduction
-  Reduction in carbon footprint through reduced energy consumption
-  Future upgrades included in Office 365 subscription
-  Charity status provides free of charge donation of Office 365
-  Operating Expenditure (OpEx) reduction on backups
-  Greater reliability – 99.7% up time guarantee with Office 365
-  Almost unlimited mailbox sizes meaning no user restrictions on email
-  Full remote access from anywhere, including mobile, table, phone etc.
-  Additional functions included such as Skype, Video Conferencing, file storage, SharePoint at no extra costs, giving numerous strategic options for CQI’s IT landscape in future

Delivered in May 2016, this project harnesses the full power of Microsoft Office 365 and the Microsoft Donation scheme is such that, as a registered charity, it was a simple choice to make. The work will give CQI a forward-looking platform on which to build their strategy around, and the worry associated with owning hardware is removed.

Testimonial

“ We moved our IT support from in-house to JADe at the start of 2013 and have been impressed with their level of commitment to resolve issues and ensure the smooth day to day running of our organisation. Their involvement in our IT projects have been crucial to their success.

JADe have supported us in our move to Office 365 for our messaging platform, which has reduced our on-site servers, reduced our backup costs, and provided staff with greater functionality and freedom with email. The additional features that Office 365 brings are also very interesting additions to our IT setup and something we look forward to exploring further over the coming years ” Otto Balsiger, Executive Director Finance & IT, Chartered Quality Institute

If you think your organisation would benefit from a similar move to cloud services – public clouds such as Microsoft Office 365, or private cloud such as JADe’s own dedicated cloud hosting platform, entirely owned and run by JADe, please do contact us for a free proposal.