Amelius Solicitors is a vibrant and dynamic legal practice established in 2006. With offices in multiple locations, the firm's main object has been to provide quality assured legal services. Amelius Solicitors specialise in a number of areas of law. Amelius Solicitors have seen significant growth since embracing technology, allowed themselves to diversify, expand, and keep up to date with industry changes and regulations.
Key Outcomes
Amelius now has a state of the art IT infrastructure which allows them to challenge larger firms
Truly efficient as they are able to make live updates to files
Access files and folders from anywhere without needing to be in the office, thus allowing conferences from anywhere in the world
IT infrastructure allowing for future expansion
Efficiency has meant that fee earners are no longer having to waste time, time which is very valuable
Easily upgrade software and hardware to meet business needs
The IT system is scalable to allow for growth
Ability to bill more accurately and not having to estimate time spent on cases
What were the challenges?
Amelius Solicitors, a local legal firm, was at a position to grow it’s business, but was hindered due to the lack of IT infrastructure. There was no resilience in the email system, the Case Management System (CMS) was slow, users were unable to work remotely, and there was no inter-office communication. Even the online presence was well below standard for such a firm.
Following a full IT audit, the issues were identified. It became clear that the whole infrastructure was out-dated, including the computers, servers, and software. There were no permissions in place and no LDAP services to control authentication, so all users had to be configured on each individual computer. The best solution was to provide a complete upgrade, helping to bring the firm to the standard that it should be at. Amelius Solicitors welcomed this change but stressed it’s need to remain operational during the deployment phase.
What were the solutions?
Upon agreement of the solution, we created a phased installation plan. The first phase was the installation of cables, routing, and switching equipment, all which was done out of hours. By creating this sort of plan, both Amelius Solicitors and Creative Networks is in a position to keep track of the progress.
Offsite, our engineers began the setup of a new server which was installed in a virtual environment, using Citrix Xen Server as the Hypervisor. The benefit of this allowed for better use of resources and formed part of the disaster recovery strategy. On-top of the Hypervisor, Remote Desktop Server and Small Business Server (SBS) 2011 was installed.
The SBS server was then configured with Group Policy, Exchange, Print and File services. Email was then migrated to the local Exchange server. To counter any server down-time and the potential loss of highly important or confidential emails, a secondary offsite mail spooling service was engaged.
Following the completion of the final phase of installation, the new infrastructure was tested. With the support team ready and engineers located onsite, the testing was a success. All data was migrated from the old system to the new, allowing Amelius Solicitors to make full use of the new technology. As Amelius Solicitors expanded, remote sites were established using IPSEC VPN tunnels back to the Manchester Office. The secured VPN’s allowed for remote extensions and local file shares.
Experts in IT solutions
We have years of experience in the industry providing tailored solutions to all sectors. Why not get in touch today with our friendly team and see how we could transform your business?
