Norwich University faced the challenges of managing a modern IT infrastructure with limited resources. We helped them migrate to Microsoft 365, unlocking a suite of advanced tools to enhance their security and communication.
The Challenge
Faced with the growing demands of managing a modern IT infrastructure with limited resources, Norwich looked to the cloud to help minimize their workload.
“We adopted a Cloud First strategy primarily to help overcome resource constraints related to managing our IT environment,” said Perley Dexter, Director of Systems and Operations at Norwich. “We have an increasing number of IT challenges and support we have to perform, but we’re rarely given more staffing or prioritized time to do those tasks. That’s why we started looking at cloud solutions.”
Norwich was also looking to increase the security profile of its IT systems.
“We needed to focus on handling authentication, identity management, and the endpoints that are accessing the data and do it with the same level of staffing,” said Dexter. “In order to do that you can’t also be running the IT infrastructure as well.”
To accomplish both goals, the school decided to move from the free Microsoft A1 platform it had been operating on to the more robust Microsoft 365 solution to take advantage of the advanced security tools and cloud solutions.
“We’ve been on Office 365 for two years and used it enough to know we needed to move to the paid tier,” said Dexter. “Moving to Microsoft 365 opened up a suite of security tools that we needed. We could have taken a piecemeal approach to all these tools through other vendors, but keeping them all in one Microsoft stack provides an economy of scale.”
“We often have to make rapid changes in the way we service our students and faculty,” he continued. “We felt consolidating everything into one system would give us the power of collaboration and scale where it would be easiest for us to support new initiatives without having to make massive changes to the infrastructure.”
The Solution
Dexter evaluated three different value-added resellers (VARs) to help with the migration to Microsoft 365 and chose Arctiq (formerly DynTek) as their cloud solution provider (CSP) to handle the implementation.
“We had done a few small engagements with Arctiq and saw the value in the resources they could bring to the table,” said Dexter. “We wanted someone that we could reach out to and immediately get the help we needed. We felt Arctiq was best suited to provide that service.”
Norwich had already begun the transition to Microsoft by migrating the school’s email from Google to the Microsoft platform – a decision driven by input received from the student government.
“After a student-wide survey, the students said the Microsoft suite felt more professional and was more like what they were going to encounter in the real world,” said Dexter. “They said it felt more natural to use in a business sense. At the end of the day we are here to serve the students who are paying us to provide them with the best quality education possible.”
Arctiq’s engagement began with a value discovery workshop that reviewed the school’s licensing options for the Microsoft 365 suite, specifically focused on the 17 embedded security features. Arctiq then performed a complete security assessment and road map for implementing the Microsoft 365 A5 suite. Part of the assessment included evaluating elements that Norwich had already purchased and suggesting ways to better leverage investments like Advanced Threat Protection, Windows Defender ATP in the Windows 10 Suite, alerting alarms and notifications, the secured administration of accounts with multi-factor authentication (MFA), and Exchange Online Protection.
As an authorized Microsoft education partner, Arctiq began by migrating Norwich from their legacy licensing to their highest-level Microsoft 365 A5 suite. Arctiq followed that with a SharePoint overview evaluation for security and helped roll out some of the school’s Teams solutions to enable them to collaborate.
The Arctiq team also helped the school with identity management using MFA, deploying Azure ATP and changing some of their email protection schemes around DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) and Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC).
Finally, Arctiq worked with the school on a modern workplace solution around the Azure Information Protection Suite, automated data classification, and data loss protection audit capabilities. The new enhanced licensing model Norwich deployed with Arctiq gave them the capability to utilize all of these new Microsoft features.
The Results
“We feel like we are already more successful through the security assessment and some of the things we were able to discover and implement from the road map,” said Dexter. “We received a better idea of how to get value out of the investments we already made.”
Dexter sees other advantages to the migration to Microsoft 365.
“The cloud-based platform keeps us up to date without worrying about replacing aging equipment every five years,” he said. “It also forces us to keep pace with the rapid changing world of technology, without facing major upgrades or infrastructure changes.” Arctiq is now working with Norwich to move the management of their Windows devices to Intune. They plan to develop a Windows Store to give users the power to install applications but give the school a more secure role over endpoints.
Norwich is pleased with the service provided by Arctiq. “The biggest thing is that they are honest and trustworthy,” said Dexter. “Arctiq has the resources so if they don’t have an answer immediately, they’ll get it and respond back quickly. They truly are a partner that’s willing to work with you.”
