Fordway has completed the implementation of a managed cloud service for Gloucester City Homes’ legacy IT applications, resulting in greater flexibility and scalability combined with reduced costs.
GCH had become dissatisfied with its previous IT supplier’s services because they were constraining development and growth, impacting everything from efficiency and decision-making to customer service, and were considered poor value for money.
Paul Haines, head of IT, Gloucester City Homes, said, “We weren’t happy with the level of service we’d been receiving, and reliability and flexibility were poor, so we wanted to take back control. At first, we moved our services into a public cloud where possible, using Microsoft Office 365 and Azure, but our old legacy applications didn’t play well with others in the cloud.”
After issuing a tender via the Crown Commercial Services technology framework, the housing provider chose Fordway’s managed cloud solution.
Fordway transferred Gloucester City Homes’ legacy applications, such as its bespoke HMS, to its own tier-4 UK datacentres. The legacy applications are now fully managed and secured as private cloud services, with daily back-ups and disaster recovery ready to go.
For end-user computing, Fordway has implemented desktop as a service (DaaS), streaming applications to users on native desktops for remote-working capability, enabling end-users to log in whenever and from wherever they want, with consistent security controls across all devices. Patching and updates are handled centrally, and Fordway has incorporated multi-factor authentication for additional security.
One of Gloucester City Homes’ concerns with its previous IT supplier had been reporting; Fordway defined some key reporting parameters and now provides focused service reports every month.
