Alchemy Partners had an on-premises server running Hyper-V which ran multiple virtual machines including roles like Active Directory, File Services, SQL & RDS

During the pandemic, working from home became more common and Alchemy was looking to implement a solution which allowed for better collaboration and file access from any location, without the required use of a remote desktop or VPN

Microsoft SharePoint has a lot of benefits. One of its key features is the ability to access files from any location with no requirement for a VPN. Files can also be synced to allow for offline accessibility

This benefited Alchemy Partners greatly and made working from different locations a lot easier. There were no longer risks associated with working from one location, such as internet or power outages. The VPN was also blocked from public networks, ensuring security

The SharePoint environment that was configured was one main SharePoint site with multiple subsites for the different departments; Admin, Finance, etc. The benefits of having multiple subsites are that it allows for better management of permissions and users only need to sync the subsites that they require to their machines

The solution also allows for all security groups to be migrated to Microsoft SharePoint to ensure permissions are retained

Microsoft SharePoint syncing uses the OneDrive for Business application to sync data and keep all files in the cloud. It then downloads them locally when accessed. Users can also set all directories or individual directories to be downloaded so they are accessible offline

Microsoft SharePoint collaboration allows your whole team to work on one document at the same time and provides live updates so edits can be viewed instantly. This benefited Alchemy as it allowed members of the team to work together more efficiently when they were out of the office

Microsoft SharePoint uses the same security configuration that is set within your Microsoft Office 365 accounts. Alchemy Partners have conditional access policies to ensure that only trusted devices can access Microsoft Office 365 resources. They also have multi-factor authentication enabled. This makes it more secure than just a standard VPN and a traditional on-premises file server

Alchemy Partners had always used a local active directory. Typically, Wizard would recommend moving to Azure Active Directory, but we felt that this did not provide the full security that they needed for their user accounts

Instead, Wizard created a hybrid approach which joined all endpoints with Azure Active Directory. This allows us to sync them to Azure but retain management of the security features and policies through the Active Directory policy

Migrating the Active Directory server to Microsoft Azure meant all user accounts remained the same so there was no change to the user’s local profiles on their endpoints. This was a key benefit for Alchemy to ensure everything still felt the same for their employees