Case Study: Microsoft Azure Cloud Infrastructure Migration for Finkelstein & Partners, LLP
Founded in 1959 by Howard S. Finkelstein, Finkelstein & Partners has grown from one office in Newburgh, NY to multiple offices across New York and New Jersey, with a staff of more than 85 attorneys and 170 para-professionals. Throughout their growth, the firm has remained dedicated to providing their clients with personal service, unsurpassed legal representation, and client service.
“Cb20 has been a great partner and integral to our overall success. I found them to be honest, transparent, and very responsive. I had a great experience and am looking forward to working with them in the future.”
— Franz Kistner, Chief Technology Officer, Finkelstein & Partners
The IT Challenges: Reaching Carbon-Neutral Goals in the Cloud
While the firm sees IT as a critical parameter in working efficiently and successfully and has long been at the forefront of technology—a unique position to be in in the legal sector—it faced a unique challenge: in order to reach its carbon-neutral goal, the firm needed to find an economically strategic approach and trustworthy partner to move to a comprehensive and complete cloud-based platform.
Initially, the firm was working with another technology partner to migrate several work streams to Amazon Web Services (AWS). They were using a Citrix platform, XenDesktop, that enabled users to work on terminals rather than PCs. While it makes end user support simple, it requires a large on-premise environment supported by multiple server virtual machines, considerable storage, and ongoing software updates.
Then COVID-19 hit. Fortunately, the firm was in a relatively good place: the office IT infrastructure had started moving toward more virtual applications, and staff were comfortable and productive in the work-from-home environment. However, with variable work schedules and duration of time online, it was also becoming expensive financially. What’s more, the relationship with the technology partner was suffering from decreased productivity and quality of work. This is when Finkelstein & Partners engaged with cb20.
A Partnership Intent on Solutions
Finkelstein & Partners has had a long-standing relationship with cb20, so when the time came to reevaluate how they used the cloud, the firm’s Chief Technology Officer, Franz Kistner, reached out to Tom Marcotte. Based on what work had been done already, cb20 was able to pick up where the last technology partner left off, without having to redo much of what had already been done.
“When Franz reached out, we talked about how they could continue with a ‘Citrix Like’ user access model that allowed users to continue working on terminals while they moved additional workloads into AWS,” explains Tom Marcotte. “I explained that Microsoft Azure has a technology called Windows 10 Virtual Desktop (WVD) that is designed to give that same user experience, in an inexpensive, easy to use, easy to administer deployment model. Ultimately, our goal was to help Finkelstein find a way to take advantage of public Cloud technologies for their data processing needs while minimizing wholesale changes in the way their end users access the applications.”
Moving both the AWS and on-premises workloads to Azure allows all systems to reside in the same location to improve performance and simplify management.
As Tom explains, “We conducted a pilot of the WVD environment with Finkelstein so they could truly test application compatibility and performance before committing to this major change. It was successful. After this pilot, our engineers provided a more detailed migration methodology, and began to work with Finkelstein on the AWS migration, final WVD implementation, on-premises workload migrations, backup configuration, and disaster recovery.”
Cb20 provided Kistner with an estimate of what the final configuration and cost would look like. And, the numbers started adding up. “I am a big believer in DOS—don’t own stuff,” says Kistner. “Not owning hardware should not be more expensive than actually owning the hardware. So the math has to work. By working with cb20, we have been very close to the projected costs for monthly spend. We may be a little higher, but we are running the entire infrastructure on it. So, that’s an economical win for us.”
A Partner That Keeps Pace
Making these changes occurred over time. In fact, there were some starts and stops along the way. According to Kistner, “cb20 was able to adjust and accommodate our pace. This meant that they had to go full throttle, but then also be able to hit the brake. Their ability to accommodate us in this way made me feel that my firm’s needs were understood and that we would get the attention we needed, when we needed it.”
But it doesn’t end there. “We have some additional projects in the pipeline. One project is around mobile security. We plan on continuing to work with cb20.”
“It’s been said that, in business, referrals are the highest compliment that can be given. To be fair, I am not going to make a recommendation that could reflect poorly on me or my firm. That said, I have recommended cb20 to other people and firms—a recommendation I gave without hesitation.”
— Franz Kistner, Chief Technology Officer, Finkelstein & Partners
About cb20
cb20 is a technology solutions provider of choice for organizations that value IT and Managed Services expertise and category-leading customer service. We partner with the world’s leading hardware and software companies to deliver end-to-end consulting, implementation and managed services across the U.S. With world-class engineering talent and 30+ years of experience cb20 delivers confidence, security, a true sense of control and the highest-quality, end-to-end customer experience in the business