C24 Arthur Terry case study Office 365

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The Arthur Terry Learning Partnership A key factor in choosing to engage with C24 for this project was our close relationship with Microsoft. David Ricketts, Head of Marketing C24 Introduction The Arthur Terry Learning Partnership is a consortium of 7 schools based in the Midlands; comprising of three secondary schools and four primary schools. IT plays a critical role in helping the schools to achieve their objectives for operational excellence and superior learning experiences. C24 was approached by the Arthur Terry Learning Partnership (ATLP) to assist with an organisation-wide migration from on-premise email and Microsoft Office applications to a hybrid cloud solution via the Office 365 platform. Head of IT Delivery, Chris Butler, led the project from within the ATLP and was responsible for a seamless migration between services so that the schools could continue to deliver high standards of technology services to students at a reduced cost. Situation Prior to the migration project, all three secondary schools had an on-premise deployment of Microsoft Exchange, whilst each of the primary schools consumed a hosted email service from a third party provider. In both instances, the level of service was not able to keep pace with increasing. In-house IT systems were ageing and required upgrading to cope with demand, whilst the primary schools’ hosted service was not able to deliver effective collaboration services. This would result in an unsustainable model in the long term; creating obstacles for the schools to achieve their ongoing objectives. Schools were unable to communicate between each other in a simple and cost- effective manner using existing systems, and flexible collaboration was not possible between different devices and locations. Added to this, space onsite at the secondary schools for datacentre IT equipment was rapidly running out so adding to the existing infrastructure was not an option. Objective The Arthur Terry Learning Partnership wanted to continue delivering an excellent standard of IT to all of their students and staff, in a bid to reduce time wasted in lessons due to issues created by legacy IT systems and to make learning and collaborating easier. These technology objectives needed to be achieved whilst reducing IT spend, so that students could access their learning materials and information at home, at school and from mobile devices without the school incurring high setup costs. Company: Industry: Education Location: Kittoe Road, Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands B74 4R. CASE STUDY

Transcript of C24 Arthur Terry case study Office 365

Page 1: C24 Arthur Terry case study Office 365

The Arthur TerryLearning Partnership

A key factor inchoosing to engagewith C24 for thisproject was ourclose relationshipwith Microsoft.David Ricketts, Head of Marketing C24

IntroductionThe Arthur Terry Learning Partnership is a consortium of 7 schools based in theMidlands; comprising of three secondary schools and four primary schools. ITplays a critical role in helping the schools to achieve their objectives foroperational excellence and superior learning experiences.

C24 was approached by the Arthur Terry Learning Partnership (ATLP) to assistwith an organisation-wide migration from on-premise email and Microsoft Officeapplications to a hybrid cloud solution via the Office 365 platform.

Head of IT Delivery, Chris Butler, led the project from within the ATLP and wasresponsible for a seamless migration between services so that the schools couldcontinue to deliver high standards of technology services to students at areduced cost.

SituationPrior to the migration project, all three secondary schools had an on-premisedeployment of Microsoft Exchange, whilst each of the primary schoolsconsumed a hosted email service from a third party provider. In both instances,the level of service was not able to keep pace with increasing.

In-house IT systems were ageing and required upgrading to cope with demand,whilst the primary schools’ hosted service was not able to deliver effectivecollaboration services. This would result in an unsustainable model in the longterm; creating obstacles for the schools to achieve their ongoing objectives.

Schools were unable to communicate between each other in a simple and cost-effective manner using existing systems, and flexible collaboration was notpossible between different devices and locations.

Added to this, space onsite at the secondary schools for datacentre ITequipment was rapidly running out so adding to the existing infrastructure wasnot an option.

ObjectiveThe Arthur Terry Learning Partnership wanted to continue delivering an excellentstandard of IT to all of their students and staff, in a bid to reduce time wastedin lessons due to issues created by legacy IT systems and to make learning andcollaborating easier.

These technology objectives needed to be achieved whilst reducing IT spend,so that students could access their learning materials and information at home,at school and from mobile devices without the school incurring high setup costs.

Company:

Industry:Education

Location:Kittoe Road, Sutton Coldfield,West Midlands B74 4R.

CASE STUDY

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ChallengeThe challenge for the ATLP migration project was inpart due to the schools having a mix of on-premiseExchange environments and hosted solutions; so aone-size-fits-all approach would not work. This meantthat a phased approach was required, to movestudents on different platforms over to the newsolution with minimal disruption.

Due to the number of users that the overall partnershipis responsible for, approximately 4,500 students andstaff, it was critical that any provider could ensure theseamless transition of services between on-premiseand cloud Exchange environments.

Furthermore, in order to comply with data governanceregulations, the ATLP needed to ensure that any emailsor data would be located within the European Union atall times. This requirement was non-negotiable and acritical success factor.

Overall, these challenges had to be overcome whilstbeing cost-effective and not incurring furtheradditional cost to the learning partnership. Theconsortium of schools required an efficient andstraightforward approach to their new applicationdelivery.

Choosing a SupplierAlthough Exchange migrations can often be astraightforward process, the scale of the project addedcomplexity. The Arthur Terry Learning Partnership hasover 4500 active users, across its student and staffbase, who needed to be migrated to their newExchange environments overnight when it would notcause disruption to learning or working activities. Thiscomplexity and scale meant that many suppliers wereunprepared for the phased migration plan required bythe ATLP.

Chris Butler, Head of IT Delivery, had worked with C24Ltd for a number of years, contracting helpdesk andsupport services from the midlands based hosting andIT provider. C24 was the natural choice when it came

to selecting a technology partner toassist with migrating the Exchange

solution to Office 365.

The ATLP also considered other cloud application andemail services but the higher costs and lack of integrationwith the school partnership’s Microsoft backendinfrastructure meant that it did not make commercial ortechnical sense to pursue further. Microsoft’s educationpricing resulted in the ATLP making cost savings andreducing any required integration work with the existingon-premise IT solutions.

OutcomesStudents have not noticed any disruption or change to their mail services; highlighting how the migration was completed non-disruptively.

Staff communication within and between schools has increased and become more efficient and collaborative through the use of Skype for Business and its instant messaging functionality.

Staff and students can now call between schools more cost-effectively via Skype, receive responses more quickly through instant messaging and share files and work documents.

IT teams can now deliver remote support via desktop sharing, resulting in issues fixedquickly without travel time.

Students can collaborate with each other through Office 365’s communication systems.

There is a seamless link between a student’s files at school and at home; meaning they can access learning materials wherever they are.

The ATLP have benefitted from being able to offer free Office Professional 2013 packages to students due to the school’s enterprise Microsoft licence.

As Chris Butler, Head ofIT Delivery, commented,“It just works.”

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Why Office 365?The ATLP ultimately chose Microsoft’s Office 365 solution due to itsready-made integration capabilities with the schools’ existingMicrosoft deployments. The fact that the service was a provensolution with clear migration paths for each legacy scenario meantthat the project was less risky, especially with the user numbers thatthe ATLP was having to cater for.

Microsoft’s education pricing meant that the solution was financiallyaccessible for the schools within their constrained IT budgets andeach month additional free-of-charge, extra services are added tothe solution by Microsoft as they develop updates.

Chris Butler highlighted the lower staff resources required by theATLP to focus on managing the underlying server estate, Exchangeenvironment and Microsoft applications now that the solution is inplace. Staff can instead focus on implementing new solutions thathelp the school to achieve its key objectives in the future.

Importantly, the ATLP had the option of choosing for their data tobe stored in Microsoft’s EU datacentres, enabling them to meet theirdata protection requirements. This differed to some other providersthat did not offer the ability to select where data would be retained.Chris Butler, Head of IT Delivery, commented, “Microsoft’s solutionnot only brought many technology benefits to the Arthur TerryLearning Partnership, but it also gives us access to the strategicforesight of a worldwide technology provider such as Microsoftabout how we should be aligning our IT environments to achievethe partnership’s operational objectives.”

Why C24?The Arthur Terry Learning Partnership has worked with C24 Ltd fora number of years, with C24 providing a range of services fromdelivery of server, networking and desktop appliances through tohelpdesk support and onsite consultancy services.

A key factor in choosing to engage with C24 for this project was theirclose relationship with Microsoft, as the midlands based applicationhosting provider currently offers a range of on-premise, privatelyhosted and Azure cloud services to clients across the Microsofttechnology stack. Being Microsoft expert consultants, C24 were ableto engage at all stages of the project from planning through todelivery and migration.

Next StepsThe Arthur Terry Partnership is nowevaluating other ways that cloudservices can be integrated into theirorganisation to strengthen theservices they deliver to students.

They recognise that due to thecomplexity of their environment it islikely that they will continue to adopta hybrid cloud approach, where someservices remain on premise, some aredelivered by 3rd party specialistproviders and others are consumedfrom the cloud.

“Microsoft’s solution not onlybrought many technology benefitsto the Arthur Terry LearningPartnership, but it also gives usaccess to the strategic foresight ofa worldwide technology provider.”Chris Butler, Head of IT Delivery

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