Case study: McElroys
A law firm moves to Azure without changing the software its people love.
How McElroys, a 25-person Auckland litigation firm, replaced an ageing office server with Azure Virtual Desktop, avoided a costly software replacement, and had its people working from anywhere from day one.
At a glance
- ClientMcElroys, specialists in insurance law, civil and maritime litigation, operating for more than 30 years.
- ChallengeAn end-of-life office server and a practice management system that only worked well on site.
- SolutionThe existing software hosted in Microsoft Azure, accessed through Azure Virtual Desktop.
- ResultNo new software to learn, no more on-site server, and up to $100,000 of replacement cost avoided.
Up to $100,000 avoided. No replacement software needed.
One weekend cutover. Planned and project-managed.
Working from day one. Same software, now anywhere.
The challenge
McElroys had a practice management system its team knew well and liked using. The problem was where it lived: on a physical server in the office. Anyone working from home or out of the office had a poor experience, and as the firm moved towards more flexible work, that mattered more every month.
The server was also reaching the end of its life. The obvious options were an expensive hardware upgrade, or replacing the software altogether with a new cloud platform.
“Apart from the flexibility, the current system is known and loved by our people. And new software is both costly and disruptive.”
Paul Sullivan, General Manager, McElroys
The approach
Kinetics had looked after McElroys’ IT for several years, so the server’s end of life had been on the agenda for some time. Rather than replace the software, our engineers proposed keeping it, and moving it off the office server onto a server in Microsoft Azure, with staff connecting through Azure Virtual Desktop.
McElroys wanted certainty before committing, so we built a proof of concept first. Once it was proven, we planned the migration carefully, with a project manager from our sister company Kambium, and completed the cutover over a single long weekend.
Security mattered too: legal work runs on sensitive information. Azure Virtual Desktop brings Microsoft’s built-in identity management, data encryption and multi-factor authentication.
The result
The firm’s people were working from day one, using the same software they already knew, from anywhere with a laptop and an internet connection. The need to buy and maintain on-site server hardware went away permanently.
“We don’t have to spend a hundred thousand on a practice management software upgrade. And we don’t have to deal with the upheaval of moving to a new and unfamiliar system. It’s the same software we all enjoy using, it just works faster and better.”
Paul Sullivan, General Manager, McElroys
The right cloud for the job
For McElroys, Azure was the right home: it gave secure access from anywhere and removed the office server for good. For other workloads, especially steady, everyday systems, our own private cloud in Auckland can be the better-value choice.
Because we run both, our advice is about what suits your business, not what suits a single platform.
Explore the options
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