Remote Desktop Service

Making a move to the cloud with a secure infrastructure solution.

Standard Wool

From their base in West Yorkshire and right through a Global operation, everything about Standard Wool reflects a unique combination of heritage and experience complemented by modern-day business practices, professionalism and technology.

Case Studies / Standard Wool – Remote Desktop Service

The Challenge

Standard Wool had data centres in Dewsbury and Bradford with servers that were reaching end-of-life. Their key requirements from this infrastructure migration project were to:

• Create a standard Virtual Desktop solution
• Provide a resilient, secure and future-proof solution
• Reduce the long-term total cost of ownership
• Implement Single Sign On (SSO)
• Allow remote access
• Provide offsite file backup, recovery and Disaster Recovery
• Minimise use of on-site IT resource
• Introduce best practice design
• Consolidate all SQL database applications
• Support desktop roaming

The Solution

We analysed the set of requirements and created a solution design which based on AWS components. An assessment of this design was made against the AWS Well Architected Framework to validate adherence to best practice.

Following completion of the design, the migration focused on:

• Port of Dynamics GP and Wool Trading System to AWS
• Port of SQL Server DB (GP, Wool Trading, SUN) to AWS
• Setup of Remote Desktop Services
• Domain Controller / Active Directory Setup
• SSO Integration with Office 365
• File and Print Server migration to AWS
• Review DHCP setup and providing recommendations

The People

Martyn Wren, Head of IT at Standard Wool was delighted with the result. Martyn remarked that “Alscient continue to exceed my expectations. Their work has removed our reliance on onsite IT resources, reduced our total cost of ownership and makes it much easier to consider new developments on a platform which we know will support our ongoing needs”.

The Result

The solution allowed users to use a Remote Desktop to access core business applications (Wool Trading System and Dynamics GP) from remote work locations.

The solution also improved Disaster Recovery provisioning with regular scheduled backups.

The solution has removed the reliance on old servers falling out of support, allowing the performance of the new cloud infrastructure to be regularly monitored (via CloudWatch). Two Domain Controllers (a resilient cross availability zone pair) have been created which allow for seamless SSO with Office 365, Dynamics CRM and Active Directory.