1E knows a thing or two about good customer service. Since 1997, the Independent Software Vendor (ISV) has been helping some of the world’s biggest organisations perfect their digital employee experiences – from PC power management in the late nineties, to endpoint management and automation platforms in 2024.

As well as providing market-leading software for its customers, 1E also recognises the need to provide its employees with a modern, optimised IT environment in which to work. Upon joining the business as Director of IT in 2022, David Todd saw an opportunity to improve 1E’s employee experience, and tapped into its existing relationship with Cloud Direct to deliver just that.

The Challenge

An office move can throw up any number of obstacles will you have the meeting space you need. Can you accommodate everyone on the busiest days in the office? Who’s in charge of keeping the coffee stocked up? When you add on-premise IT infrastructure into the mix, things get even more complicated and costly.

When 1E relocated from its Ealing head office into the City, and introduced a primarily hybrid working model, the team saw an opportunity to migrate its internal systems from an on-premise data centre to the cloud and, in the process, makes access, maintenance and costs easier to manage.

With a team of experienced IT professionals in-house, the process of moving to Azure began in fits and starts. Some workloads were migrated, others weren’t. Usage was sporadic and unpredictable. While the team understood the benefits and opportunities of moving to the cloud, the lack of consistency and control in the migration caused setbacks.

“Our migration didn’t start in a controlled fashion,” David explained. “There was no clear structure or framework in place for ways of working. That might be fine while Bob is at the company, but when Bob leaves and you need to understand how and why Bob worked in the way he did, you’re stuck.

“That also leads to costs spiraling out of control. It can be incredibly expensive when you migrate incorrectly, and that’s one of the big blockers for people adopting the cloud as their primary service. But that is only the case if it isn’t optimised.”

Cloud Direct had previously assisted 1E in migrating an application from Team Foundation Server (TFS) to Azure DevOps, a project that David didn’t have involvement in. However, when it came to identifying a Microsoft partner for the Azure migration, our previous success stood us in good stead.

“I received very positive feedback from the teams involved in that project,” David said. “When it came to finding a partner to help us migrate our internal system to the cloud, it was clear that continuing our relationship with Cloud Direct was the best choice.”

The Solution

While a traditional lift-and-shift migration was possible, David knew that this approach would only recreate the same issues – a point of view that was backed up in conversations with Cloud Direct. In order to address 1E’s pain points around cloud optimisation, management, and cost controls, the migration needed to fall in line with Microsoft’s Well-Architect Framework (WAF).

The WAF is a set of five pillars – reliability, security, cost optimisation, operational excellence and performance efficiency. – that provides a benchmark for an Azure workload. It ensures users are getting the most out of Azure in terms of performance, value and security, forming the cornerstone of a successful migration project.

This would, however, require a shift in mindset and working practices for David’s team, which would factor into the project delivery. With a project team stood up, lead by Azure Consultant Gleide Temporario, Cloud Direct got to work on scoping, migrating, and teaching.

“Our scoping calls were excellent for our team to understand the work being done and how things were being designed,” said David. “Shadowing the Cloud Direct team would have been tricky, but the day-to-day knowledge transfer was very beneficial.

“It was a new way of working for us, but Gleide was a strong, agile project manager. We’re not a huge organisation, so we didn’t have a dedicated project team. We had to balance our input with our day-to-day work, but the project management and knowledge transfer facilitated by Cloud Direct meant our team always knew what was happening, when it was happening, and what was expected of them.”

The Outcome

Now settled in its new home in the City with a team of employees operating from across the country, 1E has a cloud platform that provides its staff with seamless access to the technology they need to continue delivering for their customers.

“Our team no longer has to get back to a base,” David said, speaking about the migration’s benefits. “They can always access the Azure environment, ensuring greater reliability for their devices, accounts, and services, which leads to our customers having a better experience overall.”

Not only has it led to greater customer experiences, but also to an improved level of security – a key consideration for the organisations that 1E regularly partners with, which could have as many as 400,000 endpoints under the company’s management.

With security as one of the WAF’s five pillars, supported by the application of Microsoft Defender for Cloud, 1E was able to do more than just view its Secure Score. The team now had the ability to delve into its score and identify potential issues before they arise.

“You can look at your Secure Score and think ‘oh, that’s looking good,’ but being able to investigate it, understand vulnerabilities, and interrogate findings to see why certain accounts are being used and what they’re being used for adds a new layer of security for our customers.”

Why Cloud Direct?

“Having Cloud Direct assess our IT estate and implement a good framework has put us in a great position. Everything they delivered has made our migration a success and positioned us well to continue delivering exceptional services for our customers.”

David Todd, Director of IT

If you want to find out more about how migrating to Microsoft Azure can transform your organisation, talk to one of our experts.