As you’d expect from a highly astute legal team, Watkins Tapsell’s careful planning and foresight 12 months ahead of their office relocation paid off. The firm used the intended move as an opportunity for a total systems overhaul.

The firm was operating under a traditional ‘fat’ client system, meaning that each PC needed to be individually managed. A senior and junior IT employee was required to run a system that was barely coping with the considerable daily demands of a busy legal practice.

And so a year ahead of the move, the Huon IT team was called in to perform an IT health check and make recommendations for improvements across WTS’ IT environment. Huon drew on its years of legal experience and came up with a customised, unified plan for Watkins Tapsell’s IT and communications goals.

With a forward-thinking plan in place, Huon IT’s highly professional project management phase swung into operation. Scoped out in a series of well-organised meetings. ‘Huon’s Project Manager was not only very approachable,’ says Sonja. ‘He also kept us completely in touch, every step of the way. We always knew in advance exactly who was coming and when. The team bent over backwards to address any queries or concerns we might have had along the way.’

The Watkins Tapsell partners were adamant that the relocation should go as smoothly as possible, and Huon IT more than met their expectations. Following the systems’ shutdown at the close of business on Thursday, the Huon team worked through the night to have everything successfully installed and running by first thing Friday morning. ‘It was all so efficient,’ says Sonja. ‘We were worried about losing emails, for example, but absolutely nothing was lost.’

New Technology: The Right Fit

Infrastructure 

• HP DL 360p 8th Generation Servers – provides high availability on the server cluster, allowing for resiliency in the infrastructure.
• HP MSA 2040 Storage Area Network – delivers a high-performance storage solution.
• Extreme Network X460 Switching – facilitates high-performance virtualisation inter-connectivity.

Communication

• Citrix Xenapp – provides a consistent and high-performance desktop experience. Permitting staff to work securely from any device at any location, providing user mobility.
• Avaya IP Office IP500 – delivers user mobility, plus improved management, scalability and communication feature set.

Business continuity

• Veeam Backup Essentials – unifies the backup platform, providing both onsite and offsite backup. It also ensures WTS can be restored in the event of data loss.
• Microsoft Hyper V – enables an agile core infrastructure.
• Synology NAS Server – provides fast and reliable disk-to-disk archived and onsite backups.
• APC Smart UPS – is a single, high-capacity backup unit, which can run WTS’s entire infrastructure for 1.5 hours in the event of a power outrage. The APC is able to completely. automate the shut down and restart of the system.

Security

• Multi-Factor Authentication – provide enhanced security for remote access.
• Citrix Xenapp – secure encrypted connections to server-based computing.

• Meticulous research, systems planning and project management.
• No downtime or loss of information during installation.
• Highly efficient and modern IT phone systems.
• Unified backup platform, ensuring protection from data loss.
• Enhanced security for remote access.
• High-performing servers, storage and switching.