Hilson Moran, a multi-disciplinary engineering consultancy with offices in the UK and Middle East, is using Riverbed SteelFusion to address their top priorities of safeguarding company data, making IT more agile across multiple distributed locations, and lowering global network costs across the business.
Hilson Moran plans, designs, manages and operates built assets for a range of customers. It employs more than 250 people across offices in the UK and Middle East. The Hilson Moran portfolio of work includes some of the most prestigious projects in the hottest construction markets. These include the provision of building services for the 2012 Olympic Village in London, 30 St Mary Axe (The Gherkin), 20 Fenchurch Street (The Walkie Talkie), and the masterplan to a community of 50,000 residents off the coast of Abu Dhabi.
“The business needs IT to deliver solutions that allow our engineers to do their job effectively, wherever they may be” says Lee Beckford, Hilson Moran’s Head of IT. “One of our most critical assets is our data and intellectual property. Safeguarding our data, keeping it safe while universally accessible, is a top priority.”
Beckford has a 10-year plan to transform Hilson Moran’s approach to IT. The plan has three stages, with the ultimate goal of moving everything to the cloud. “This first step is to centralize our IT infrastructure at the London office,” Beckford says. “We want to take IT out of the branch.”
In each remote office location Hilson Moran deployed Riverbed SteelFusion, a software-defined edge solution that delivers unprecedented data security, business continuity, IT agility and end-user productivity to distributed enterprises. SteelFusion enabled Hilson Moran to remove and centralize legacy compute, storage and backup infrastructure from remote offices into their main data centres. All back-ups are now completed via the London office, and centralising services to the UK has enabled more operational control, reduced complexity and improved data security.
Embedded within the SteelFusion Edge platform, Riverbed SteelHead technology optimizes the wide area network (WAN), accelerates application delivery, and reduces bandwidth use. In addition, Riverbed SteelHead Mobile extends optimization for staff working outside of the office to ensure they can be equally productive, regardless of location.
“Thanks to the Riverbed solution, stage one of our 10-year plan is now complete,” says Beckford. “With Riverbed SteelFusion, Hilson Moran’s IT infrastructure is now centralized at the London head office. The Riverbed solution has positively impacted cost, culture and morale.”
According to Hilson Moran, the SteelFusion has made a number of positive impacts:
- Improved network efficiency by as much as 80%
- Strengthened data security and backup at a fraction of the estimated budget
- Reduced strain on IT team with improved branch support, freeing time to support new projects
- Encouraged greater collaboration and remote working
“We’re looking at a more remote workforce, becoming a paperless office and greater use of the cloud,” says Beckford. “The successful completion of stage one of our 10-year strategy, with the support of Riverbed, gives us a platform on which to build.”
