A London Premium Listed FTSE 250 hydrocarbons exploration and production company sought experienced channel partners to provision Microsoft’s Azure Virtual Desktop utilising Nerdio Manager for Windows to streamline efficiencies, communication and collaboration with the onboarding of 250 employees post acquisition.

Partners with

OVERVIEW

Rapid deployment for delivering a secure modern Windows 10 desktop for onboarding employees to access Microsoft 365 environment using Microsoft 365 Apps for Business.
Leveraged Nerdio Managed for Enterprise to bolster the management and deployment
of the solution to enable the support team to efficiently service end-users.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Energean plc is a well-established, recognised FTSE-listed independent oil & gas company which recently acquired Edison Exploration & Production from Edison Spa. Energean IT Department had a requirement to provide incoming Edison employees with access to Energean systems including intranet (Microsoft SharePoint Online), email (Microsoft Exchange Online) and Microsoft Teams while still utilizing their existing Edison supplied devices and infrastructure.

Having worked with Bytes Software Services and Insentra on previous engagements, Energean sought their collective expertise to develop and deliver a Microsoft’s Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) solution hosted in Microsoft Azure to support 250 end-users with access to their (Energean’ s) Microsoft 365 environment using Microsoft 365 Apps for Business.

The solution employed by Bytes Software Services and Insentra utilised Windows 10 Enterprise multi-session via the existing Energean Microsoft 365 entitlement and leveraged

Nerdio Managed for Enterprise to control consumption costs and enhance management and reporting capabilities.

Insentra’s proven experience of deploying Microsoft’s Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) allows for the solution to be supported by Energean’s existing Active Directory Domain Services (ADDS), which was extended with the addition of Domain Controllers in Azure.

THE CHALLENGE FACED BY ENERGEAN WAS TO:

Provide employees of the acquired Edison organisation a secure desktop with access to Energean’ s data, applications, resources and assets in a condensed timeline.

Provide users with their required applications including Microsoft Office 365 Apps, Chrome browser and line-of-business applications.
Provide an architecture that leverages Software-as-a-Service and Platform-asa-Service to reduce complexity and management overhead.
Provide a solution that utilizes existing entitlements to reduce licensing costs.
Provide secure access to Energean organisation
utilising multi-factor authentication.

UNDERSTANDING THE CHALLENGES

There were a number of foreseen and unforeseen challenges throughout this project.

The project team were located in various global locations which lead to the challenge of working through and around various COVID-19 national and localised lockdowns to deliver the project remotely.
Delivery of a consolidated multi-region, multilanguage application configuration into a simplified single managed AVD Image.
The shift in approach from on-premises centric architecture to cloud based architecture and solution design.

OUR APPROACH

Bytes Software Services and Insentra’s project team had already worked with Energean on previous engagements and had built strong working relationships and rapport with each other even with working remotely and across multiple time-zones and global locations.

Insentra’s proven methodology, having a structured phased approach, ensured all of Energean’s requirements were captured and implemented accordingly. Recognizing that transformation projects are complex engagements that deal with critical business information and often part of larger organizational change, Insentra meticulously followed a rigorous project.

Establishment – laying the foundation for the overall project enabling joint delivery teams to share a mutual understanding of the requirements, scope, dependencies, and risks of the Project.
Plan – Insentra completed an assessment of the current environment to assist in identifying elements that may impact delivery of the AVD solution. Technical design workshops to engage with Energean’ s project team helped to map out the solution journey and capture the critical business requirements.
Prepare – Initial deployment and validation of the AVD solution to confirm it was functionally ready prior to commencing the business validation for the AVD environment.
Transform – Enabling Pilot and Early Adopter users to access a non-production AVD solution to allow Energean to undertake and complete User Acceptance Testing (UAT) to validate against the business requirements and critical success criteria. Staged full production roll-out to the remaining users and collaborated with Energean’s internal IT support to troubleshoot any issues identified by the end-users.
Transition – Insentra prides itself on enabling the transition of the project to Energean’s internal IT support into BAU. Interactive knowledge transfer sessions enabled Insentra Project Team to walk through the deployment and management console for Nerdio Manager.

PROJECT DELIVERY

Bytes Software Services and Insentra continue to build on their existing relationship with the Energean Project Team to aid project delivery.

Hosted a series of design workshops to gain a deep understanding of the business and technical requirements.
Delivered a high-level design document covering all facets of the solution such as user persona types, access, security, scaling, management, networking and monitoring.
Delivered a functional testing plan which was fully validated before customer handover.
Worked closely with the Energean technical team to understand and resolve issues identified in the pilot phase.
Hosted a series of solution handover and training workshops with the Energean engineering and service desk teams.
Delivered tailored training content, videos and session recordings.
Utilized Nerdio Managed for Enterprise, a platform management and orchestration tool, to quickly manage and deploy AVD on Azure covering Test, UAT and Production environments.
Provided production release and post-release solution support to accelerate adoption and ensure a good level of admin and user experience.

COLLABORATION

Being PartnerObsessed^TM, Insentra collaborated with Bytes Software Services to leverage long-term relationships with Microsoft and Nerdio to deliver this project. Bytes Software Services and Insentra liaised with these vendors at every step of the project to design, configure and provide support elements for the project.

CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS

By working closely between Energean, Bytes Software Services and Insentra, we were able to deliver the project to meet the identified success criteria.

The Critical Success Factors identified were:

Timescales – Implementation of the solution within a condensed timeframe to allow for onboarding employees to access organisation data and resources.

Costs – The requirement to understand and manage the cost implication for AVD whilst utilising existing investments.

Collaboration – Allowing for an exchanging of data and materials between Edison and Energean colleagues allowing for communication using technology.

End User Experience – Delivering a quick and simple User Experience in order to access organisational resources and Microsoft 365 applications and services.

Security – Maintaining multi-factor authentication to provide a secure workspace for accessing corporate resources and data.