This case study explains how Compete366 worked with Integrity, an international consultancy working on complex and challenging issues around the globe, to build a global IT infrastructure using Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop.
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Business Background
Integrity is an ethical consultancy and service provider. They help clients across the globe in government, the private sector and the international development community to navigate complex challenges through trusted advice and service delivery.
Service areas include Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL), Data and Knowledge Management (DKM), Research, Evidence and Analysis (REA), deployed across a range thematic areas including climate security, fragility and violent conflict, health, security and justice, gender and social inclusion, and humanitarian assistance.
Integrity is a dynamic company made up of a team of core of staff members and a growing pool of expert consultants.
Working in partnership, they support project delivery from and beyond Integrity’s five global offices in the UK, US, Kenya, Pakistan and Jordan.
The Business Challenge
Due to the nature of Integrity’s work, its team is geographically dispersed, and often operating in fragile and conflict-affected settings. As new team members come on board, a key challenge for the IT team was getting company-issued IT equipment to colleagues around the world.
Central to Integrity’s work is the need to ensure data security. The IT team needed to maintain secure access to company resources wherever they work.
In many cases, projects involve collaboration between Integrity personnel, partner organisations and clients, so a secure process for sharing documents and communications was essential.
The solution also needed to be convenient to use for consultants and partners – without the limitations of simple browser-based access. It was important for Integrity that its highly skilled teams could use their time efficiently with the right tools for the job.
The Solution – Azure Virtual Desktop
After careful consideration of the requirements, it was decided that Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) would be the best solution to use to provide secure conditional access to Integrity systems.
The fact that AVD ensures the use of only compliant devices means that only team members who meet the AVD access criteria are able to access project data. And if the team members were using a non-compliant method of access, then only browser access would be provided, thus ensuring that no data could be left on the user’s machine.
Integrity runs on the M365 product suite, which allows them to keep the same infrastructure and the same M365 user accounts to meet this new requirement.
An added benefit was that Integrity already had a VM certified engineer in Amir Dangol, Senior IT Manager, with experience setting up and using multiple virtual machines.
Amir contacted Microsoft to find an AVD specialist partner to support the implementation and after an initial period of evaluation, decided to work with Compete366.
As Amir explains “From the outset, we enjoyed working with Compete366. Our first call was not the sales call that I expected but instead focused on helping us to find answers to our questions, and giving us confidence that we had selected the right solution. The fact that Compete366 had the Solution Partner Designations for Azure Infrastructure and Modern Work and also shared their in-depth technical knowledge from the outset gave me confidence that in choosing to work with them we were making a good decision for our business.”
Project Overview
Work on the Azure Virtual Desktop project commenced, with the majority of the work being delivered by the Compete366 AVD experts on the deployment. Amir Dangol provided onsite project support ensuring that users were correctly onboarded, and gave access to the environment for Compete366 when required.
Compete366 recommended an initial pilot run for the project. It identified a few additional areas to work on such as adding secure access and setting up Multi Factor Authentication. As Amir explains:
“We had great support from the Compete366 AVD expert, who was really helpful, and guided me through options to tackle issues that arose.”
The pilot phase allowed for thorough testing of the AVD set up and for adjustments to be made. This resulted in the decision being made to provide a more powerful virtual machine to meet user needs.
After the initial pilot phase, Integrity has now progressed to rolling out the AVD solution to projects where needed, each one tailored to the individual project requirements.
The great thing about our AVD set up is that we have a custom set up for each project which Compete366 showed me how to do. And with the scalability and flexibility of AVD – we can meet clients’ expectations and get project users up and running more quickly.”
Amir Dangol, Senior IT Manager
The Benefits
- Speed of deployment for new users.
- Ease of setting up users to work all over the globe with secure, compliant IT
- IT time savings in hardware procurement, shipping and logistics costs and laptop set up.
- Users able to use their personal computer to access a fully secure desktop with the applications they require.
- Mitigates the risks of data loss – AVD is fully secure meaning that users are prevented from copying highly sensitive information outside of the organisation.
- If a laptop device is lost or stolen, there is no data loss as this resides in AVD.
“Before our implementation of AVD, to set up a new user on a project, we would have had the hardware procurement and shipping costs, plus time to set up each machine. Now everything is set up automatically in around 2 minutes, simply by using the AVD portal to provide access and send instructions. All we need to do is give around 15 minutes of support to a new user to walk them through the setup instructions.”
As Integrity grows it can be confident that the AVD infrastructure will scale to meet that growth. There is high confidence in the new infrastructure within the project management cadre, who have found AVD an efficient solution to providing system access and logistics quickly and securely. It also enables teams to hit the ground running.
Integrity is deploying multiple host pools for AVD to facilitate new set ups. This allows each project team to be securely held in one infrastructure, providing client confidence in the security of their data and Integrity’s IT governance processes.
Amir concludes by saying “We would definitely reach out to Compete366 for any further Azure infrastructure support going forward, it’s been a pleasure working with the team.”
If you’d like to find out more about our Expert AVD Consultancy services then do get in touch. We’ll be pleased to help.
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“It’s great to work with the Compete366 team, the team members are really knowledgeable, helpful and responsive. No question is too difficult for them. They have really helped us to manage our Azure costs and ensure we have the right environment. When we bring a new customer on-board we can scale up immediately via the Azure portal and quickly make environments available to our customers.”
“We also find that there’s never a heavy sales pitch from them – they are technically focused and recommend what’s right for us.”
“We had great support from the Compete366 AVD expert, who was really helpful, and guided me through options to tackle issues that arose.”
“The great thing about our AVD set up is that we have a custom set up for each project which Compete366 showed me how to do. And with the scalability and flexibility of AVD – we can meet clients’ expectations and get project users up and running more quickly.”
“We were immediately impressed with the advice that the Compete366 specialists in Azure Architecture were able to provide. This was all new to us and we really needed some external expertise that we could use to get our questions answered. The beauty of working with Compete366 is that we transferred our Azure consumption to them, and at the same time received all of their advice and guidance free of charge.”
“Working with Compete366 has been like extending our own team – they are extremely and easy to work with. Right from the outset, it was clear what was on offer – everything was presented to us in a straightforward and uncomplicated way. They also provided just the right level of challenge to our developers and saved us time and money by suggesting better ways to implement our infrastructure.”
“Compete366 were able to help us leverage some useful contacts in Microsoft. We really value the expert advice and guidance that they have offered us in setting up a highly scalable infrastructure. We are also setting in place a regular monthly meeting which will allow us to further refine our architecture and ensure we keep on track as our requirements grow and change.”
“I have been delighted with the migration, where my team worked very hard, supported by expert advice from Compete366, and achieved everything in the timescale we had set out. Compete 366 made sure that we didn’t make any expensive mistakes, and guided us through the process”
