Delivering improvements through a ‘cloud first’ strategy at London Borough of Waltham Forest

Choosing a people-centric cloud migration strategy

In 2017, the hardware hosted in the managed data centre used by the Council was aging and in need of a refresh. Senior technology leadership saw this as an opportunity to make a step change in infrastructure and service delivery, taking a cloud first approach.

“I was very clear from day one that cloud adoption was the way to go,” explains Neville. “When I came, I saw a team that was focused on patching hardware and software and trying to keep things going when they are broken. We just needed to be in a more sustainable future. I wanted to move from talking about kit to talking about service and the impact on the real people we serve.”

“We looked at the options and we thought the best option for us to move forward was Microsoft Azure,” explains David Frewin, Infrastructure Network Services Manager at Waltham Forest. “We had done some forays into AWS and GCloud which had been application specific and provider led. But looking at the infrastructure as a whole, because we are using Microsoft services and have Microsoft skills, the natural progression and the safest path was to opt for Microsoft Azure.”

Neville says that Microsoft’s willingness to offer advice around the borough’s multi-cloud environment was another reason for choosing Microsoft Azure. Choice and a strong customer focus are essential in any partner in local government Neville emphasises. 

Taking a different approach

The big difference was that Waltham Forest decided to invest in its own team, rather than use a cloud services provider. Neville explains, “It was important to invest in people and build capability in the council for the long term. We could learn together and be really proficient.”

The leadership team felt that developing skills in-house was an essential strategy for the future, giving staff a strong foundation of experience so they are better placed to manage the environment moving forward. Frewin says, “By upskilling our staff and giving them the right tools to manage the migration, they would know all the little nuances about the environment, so that afterwards they could continue to operationally manage and develop it.”

Time spent planning was well spent

The council’s team of architects and senior applications, infrastructure and network engineers worked together to design the platform in Microsoft Azure and develop the migration plan. This included using Azure Site Replication and automatic DNS changes on cutover. The team then worked with their licencing partner and Microsoft to get the design ratified and make a few final small tweaks. 

“The amount of time we spent on the planning stage and the pilot stage working with Microsoft was absolutely critical,” says Jamie Plummer, Programme Manager at Waltham Forest. “That meant that when we came to it, we could deliver in the timeframes we intended to.”

The approach began with the migration to Windows 10 and Microsoft 365, because this would have the greatest impact for staff and the greatest collaboration and productivity impacts. As a result, the council invested time upfront to prepare users, setting up key teams to work with IT on a proof of concept and manage governance issues. Frewin says, “It was a massive jump for our customers, but also a massive improvement.”

“There was a lot of prep work, but when we came to the migration it was planned out quite aggressively so we could move everyone over at the same time and ensure the best experience. They took it on well and it was very seamless,” Frewin explains. “We used Microsoft’s migration services for Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Azure and they were excellent.”

Tips for a successful migration

A key part of the migration was user engagement. In local government, there are certain times of the year that are busier for the different services, so the project team worked closely with the system owners in the directorates to minimise impact for users. In addition to training, Frewin recommends that “the business as a whole is aware of the new governance and security options that are available in the environment and make sure that’s in place first, so you have less impact on customers moving forward.”

The decision to manage the migration in-house contributed to a smooth rollout, continues Frewin: “It made the migration process more seamless because we had a team in-house that understand what to look out for with certain applications and who understand the business environment.”

“This is borne out by the number of tickets raised during the migration process,” agrees Plummer, “they really were very few.”

Skilling the workforce for the future

The sheer scope of the project was a challenge, says Plummer: “This was one of the largest projects we’ve undertaken that has touched so many different departments at the same time. In local government we are very careful in our security, so we have quite closed environments which don’t necessarily lend themselves to easy collaboration. We had to take people on that journey of learning new skills – from a technical perspective, but also within the business.”

However, Plummer says the technology choices made it easy to gain buy-in: “Microsoft 365 is a pretty easy sell – it was great from an engagement point of view. With lots of new collaboration tools to play with, our Champions network was very easy to create!”

Frewin reports a similar dynamic in the technical teams: “One of the best things has been the motivation in the team. Working on these projects has brought the whole corporate development team closer together. Having invested in their skills, people are more interested and motivated in doing their job day to day.”

Plummer says early engagement with partners has also been key to success. “The advice is to go in with your eyes open and be sure what your application partners can deliver. Get them onboard as part of the pilot process. A lot of our partner supply chain are on the same journey as us: some ahead of us, many behind. We weren’t necessarily able to implement what we thought we could have initially, but that engagement has built stronger relationships and a better application roadmap. We can be more specific about where we want to be – and that gives them targets to aim for.”

Ready for the unexpected: working through the pandemic

The Microsoft 365 migration was completed in November 2019. The timing couldn’t have been better. “When we began planning in 2018, one of our goals was to prepare for the unexpected – although we had no idea what that unexpected would be,” admits Neville. 

“In March 2020, we went from 400 people to 1,900 people working from home overnight and we were very ready to support that,” Neville continues. “By modernising the platform we’ve been able to respond to the unexpected and we’ve been able to keep services running – and running well. That’s what it’s all about.” 

Simon Copsey, Assistant Director ICT Operations at London Borough of Waltham Forest, states: “There is no doubt that having our Microsoft 365 and OneDrive data in the cloud was a critical performance factor. Staff working from home could go direct to Microsoft without traversing our network. This meant business applications accessed through our network experienced no latency. The pandemic has also driven the adoption of technology, particularly Microsoft Teams, which has become a core staff application and enabled us to meet democratic objectives, such as public participation in council meetings.”

Plummer agrees, “It’s been brilliant having all these new tools and especially having Microsoft Teams throughout the pandemic. It was absolutely brilliant timing; we had all the key work done before we had to rely on it.” 

Understanding the new financial model

One of the goals of the migration was to reduce spend by ten percent. This has been achieved, but Neville emphasises that the move from a cap-ex investment model to an op-ex model requires careful thought and planning.

“We recently had to do a major upgrade to an existing system and while the model around that upgrade is technically a lot easier to do – we realised we can just add resource very easily – working out financially how that cost is shared across the council is something more complicated. That’s one of the things councils need to think about moving forward.”

With the majority of workloads migrated to Microsoft Azure, the colocation data centre contract ended in October 2020 – freeing Waltham Forest to achieve real savings from the migration.

Copsey says, “There is a cloud learning curve but the beauty is that you can traverse it quickly and pilot different workload configurations before finalising the option that delivers the optimal combination of price and performance. Performance and cost-wise, the Microsoft tools have been excellent predictors.”

Performance improvements – even for legacy

As well as cost savings, the borough has achieved a number of important performance improvements. Some of the applications that used to be delivered on under-performing remote desktop services can now be delivered via Windows Virtual Desktop from Azure, delivering significant performance improvements in the process.

On older legacy systems where a “lift and shift” approach was used, there have been performance gains on workloads even on modest configurations. Copsey states, “The Microsoft Azure tools at our disposal have also allowed us to identify performance options which do not necessarily mean more cost.”

These important benefits weren’t something the team was necessarily expecting, Neville says. “The council tax and benefits system was one of the last workloads to move to the cloud. It’s an old system that batch processes overnight. On the old equipment it was taking longer and longer and if it didn’t update overnight, it didn’t catch up. That was a huge operational issue. Simply by moving it to the cloud, we can add more compute quite easily and have resolved that issue. Nothing’s changed apart from how we're hosting, but suddenly we’ve got an operational benefit.”

Neville admits the question of who pays for that extra compute is more nuanced: “That’s the challenge!” he says. 

Improved productivity and resilience

The advantages of a cloud-first environment are also realised in terms of agility and resilience. There have been productivity improvements for the IT team too. Less reactive work frees up time for more proactive, value-add activities.

“We’ve standardised on systems, so they are much easier to manage,” says Frewin, “and they are much more resilient – that’s one of the big benefits. Cloud solutions are more dynamic and more flexible, so we can put in place more resources when they’re needed. But also, we’ve put in place fail-over options and resiliency in Microsoft Azure that as an individual council we’d struggle to be able to afford.”

Having services in Microsoft Azure has greatly improved the security status of the enterprise and its ability to react and recover from security events. Access to high-tech cyber-security tools and the greater agility and speed of deployment of them proved important when new guidance was issued by the National Cyber Security Centre following a data leak at a neighbouring borough. The team could act swiftly to adapt the security posture within minutes so it aligned with the latest guidance. 

Frewin adds, “We now have the option to utilise Azure Site Recovery with manual or automatic failover to one of the Microsoft secondary regions and having all storage automatically geo-redundant. Microsoft Azure Backup also provides additional security features such as improved authentication, alerting and the option to restore deleted backups.”

Critically important for the future

The cloud migration has proved critically important for the borough in many different ways: in security posture, operationally, financially and transformationally. 

“One of the reasons for adopting a cloud-first strategy is for access to the latest tools and capabilities. A local council is never going to be able to do our own R&D in the way Microsoft can. And I wanted access to the latest tech in a way that is affordable and realistic,” Neville says.

“We now have access to microservices that enable us to go on the next stage our cloud journey. We are able to do integrations in a new way. We are able to look at our data in a new way. And we are able to consider new things that we haven’t been able to consider before. And that’s not only because of the technology either – it’s because of the time we have back too.”

“It’s what it does for us for the future that is perhaps the most important thing,” Neville emphasises. “It’s why I’m passionate about it – and my passion has been shared by the Microsoft team; they’ve been very good partners for us.”