IT Case Study: Law Firm

In this IT Case Study, we explore innovative solutions and strategies that have contributed to success in the tech industry. This highlights the challenges and solutions encountered in modern information technology environments. The insights provided here are crucial for understanding IT Case Study methodologies.

Doceo performed an IT Assessment for a York, PA-based Law Firm, a scenario fitting for an IT Case Study. The firm was at high risk of cybersecurity attacks, significant downtime, and data loss. Doceo was able to enhance its previous IT investment with significant savings in hardware and software costs.

Assessment & Discovery

Key findings included:

• There were three hardware servers in place of various ages with no hardware warranties. Two of the three were running unsupported operating systems, demonstrating a need for solutions highlighted in this IT Case Study.
• Of twenty-five workstations, eight were running Windows 7 and had not received security updates for almost a year.
• The Law Firm had recently been the victim of a ransomware attack, and all files were encrypted. At the time of the ransomware attack, there were no complete server backups in place. This IT Case Study exemplifies the sizable loss of proprietary data.
• Domain policies across the organization were putting the firm at risk.

In summary, while this organization’s IT provider had good intentions, they were not taking a consultative approach to IT Infrastructure. Best practices in managing the relationship would have advised the partners in the firm that their infrastructure was inadequate in terms of security and left the organization at risk. Running obsolete and unprotected servers was a significant risk of downtime should a server experience a failure. In a legal practice, having key line of business applications down for an extended time has the potential to interrupt the ability to provide service and interrupt revenue for the practice.

In short, the incumbent IT vendor failed to coach the firm on how to invest cost-effectively and adequately in their IT infrastructure, leading to costly consequences. This IT Case Study demonstrates the critical need for effective coaching and infrastructure management.

Solution

Based on the findings above, Doceo made several key recommendations for upgrades to the key components of their IT infrastructure.

The newest physical server is being upgraded with the following:

• Data drives are being upgraded to Solid State Drives, the RAID reconfigured, and a hot-swappable backup drive will be in place. Should a drive failure occur in the future, corrective action can begin automatically within minutes.
• The team is upgrading the server memory by adding 32GB of RAM.
• They will migrate the obsolete physical servers into a Hyper-V virtualized environment on the newly upgraded server.
• They also upgraded the server warranty to include an additional three years of Mission Critical 24×7 coverage with a guaranteed 4-hour onsite response.

Other solutions included:

• The team is implementing a Dell SonicWall firewall solution with three years of Enhanced Security and support, a critical component of this IT Case Study.

Managing technology is an ongoing process and requires time and discipline. Doceo provides virtual Chief Information Officer (CIO) services to all our IT customers. We engage with them regularly, on their timeline, to develop a technology roadmap and assist in their long-range planning process. This approach ensures the organization designs and scales its technology to meet both current and future business goals.

Long-range planning can introduce many variables that require consulting with an organization’s technology services provider to identify the technology-related impacts of change.

These variables include the following:

• Headcount Growth
• New Locations (especially if the current organization is a single-location organization)
• Moving premise-based applications to cloud-based – an increasingly common occurrence.
• Mergers and acquisitions often require data conversions and management of third-party vendors.

Conclusion

A Technology Partnership should not be a one-time, “set-it and forget-it” experience. Businesses are facing constant change in their respective competitive landscapes that require focusing their full attention on their business. They do not have time to worry about whether they are being taken advantage of by their IT provider. Instead, they need a partner with a business-focused approach to technology.

Doceo takes a hands-on approach to technology partnerships. We don’t get lost in the “nuts and bolts” of tech or the buzzwords that flood today’s market. Instead, we treat technology as a tool—one that can either support or hinder your business goals. We excel at working closely with our partners to understand their objectives, clarify their focus, and determine exactly what steps will get them where they want to go.

That is the Doceo Difference.