Tax season on a server closet that wasn't going to survive another one
A twelve-person accounting firm kept its files on Windows Server 2012 in a closet by the kitchen. We moved everything to Azure over a long weekend in May.
This shows the kind of work we do. It is not a client engagement, and the business in it is invented.
- 0servers left in the closet
- 1 weekendof downtime for the cutover, timed for after tax season
- 2complaints on the Monday after, both about the same mapped drive
- 30 daysof backups kept where the firm's own admin can't delete them
Where it started
The problem
In April the closet door stayed propped open so the server wouldn't overheat. It ran Windows Server 2012, which stopped getting security updates in October 2023.
Staff opened client files over a VPN that dropped whenever two people printed at once. Nobody could explain that, including us at first.
What changed
What we did
Documents moved to SharePoint, and the tax software that insists on a Windows machine now runs in an Azure Virtual Desktop pool. Staff open the same desktop from the office or the kitchen table at home.
Access follows people now, not machines. Every sign-in needs multi-factor authentication, and conditional access blocks logins from countries the firm has never had a client in.
Cutover happened over a long weekend in late May, with tax season safely behind them. On Monday two people couldn't find a mapped drive. That was the whole list of complaints.
Backups land in a separate Azure subscription that the firm's own admin account can't delete, so a stolen login can't take the backups down with it.
And the VPN mystery? A firmware bug in the old router. It went to recycling with the server.
Built with
- Microsoft Azure
- Azure Virtual Desktop
- SharePoint Online
- Microsoft Entra ID
- Azure Backup
Services in this job
Cloud Migration & Management
AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, DigitalOcean
Identity & Access Management (IAM)
MFA, single sign-on and admin accounts
Data Backup & Disaster Recovery (BDR)
Restores that have been rehearsed
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