“Office 365 adds huge value to the business and will take the pressure off the IT team when we want to use iPad, iPhone, and Windows devices. Our people working remotely now have flexible access to email.”

Brian Lyall, Group IT Development Manager, Renishaw

Global manufacturer Renishaw wanted to upgrade its communication and collaboration technology by taking advantage of cloud services. It deployed Microsoft Office 365 and Exchange Online for 3,100 mailboxes, avoiding the need to buy new servers. Renishaw now has mobile connectivity across any device and 25-gigabyte mailboxes for all staff, with unlimited storage. Anywhere access ensures that remote workers can stay connected at all times.

Business NeedsRenishaw specialises in measurement, motion control, spectroscopy, and precision machining, with manufacturing plants in the United Kingdom (UK), Ireland, and India. Listed on the UK Stock Exchange, the firm has over 3,100 staff located at 60 offices in 32 countries, with annual revenue of £332 million (US$500 million). It makes 94 per cent of its sales outside the UK.

Renishaw is a highly acquisitive company, interested in expanding its business in different regions worldwide—as a result, it needs secure, reliable communications technology. Until recently, Renishaw was managing its 12 physical communications and collaboration servers running Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, which, by 2011, had reached the end of its life cycle.

Brian Lyall, Group IT Development Manager, Renishaw, says: “We thought that the cloud would help us respond faster to the growing demands of the business. The company is becoming less centralised in the UK and more regional in structure—moving our communications infrastructure to the cloud would help support this trend. We also wanted to provide users with larger mailboxes than the previous 100-megabyte limit—our

people were becoming frustrated with the storage restrictions and were starting to use other services.”

The key question for Renishaw was whether to use the cloud or upgrade the physical infrastructure, replacing its 12 geographically dispersed servers. “Moving to the cloud was financially sensible and it would capture the future upgrade cycle without additional costs,” says Lyall. “We spent a lot of time looking at the risks involved. The previous server footprint was expensive to maintain and would involve capital expenditure to replace. Other considerations that favoured the cloud were that we wanted to look at introducing a bring-your-own-device policy and better support working from remote locations.”

SolutionRenishaw corporate IT uses largely Microsoft products, so from the beginning it was looking for a Microsoft cloud solution to integrate with its existing technologies rather than introduce a new vendor platform. Total cost of ownership was a major consideration.

Microsoft Cloud Partner Minttulip recommended a hybrid mechanism for the introduction of Microsoft Office 365. It

Customer: RenishawWebsite: www.renishaw.com Customer Size: 100–5,000Country or Region: United KingdomIndustry: Manufacturing—Measurement and control instruments Partner: Minttulip

Customer ProfileA world leader in engineering technologies, United Kingdom–based Renishaw applies its core skills in measurement and healthcare. It is rapidly expanding in Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

Software and Services Microsoft Office 365− Microsoft Exchange Online

Microsoft Office− Microsoft Lync 2010

Microsoft Server Product Portfolio− Microsoft Forefront Online

Protection for Exchange − Microsoft Exchange Server 2010

Technologies− Active Directory Federation Services

For more information about other Microsoft customer successes, please visit: www.microsoft.com/casestudies

Microsoft Office 365Customer Solution Case Study

Renishaw Moves to the Cloud to Ensure Workers Have Online Access Anywhere

included deploying Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 to help Renishaw manage a staged migration over five months for its dispersed servers and four regional data centres for the first 2,400 mailboxes.

Lyall says: “We successfully deployed Microsoft Office 365 and Exchange Online, and subsequently another 700 new users were added to the cloud platform. The highly secure infrastructure included using Active Directory Federation Services and single sign-on access.”

Nick Buckley, Senior Online Services Business Consultant, Minttulip, says: “We transferred knowledge to the Renishaw IT team about how to migrate the mailboxes, and then the Renishaw team took over. They needed to coordinate internal activities with the move to Office 365, such as public folder consolidation and removing personal storage folders from servers. This took time.”

Starting with a pilot of 50 staff , a gradual rollout to a number of smaller UK sites and overseas subsidiary sites, followed by a major rollout to the remaining 1,500 UK users over a weekend, Renishaw completed the deployment company-wide in December 2012.

Office 365 Exchange Online integrated well with Microsoft Lync 2010 unified communications, which Renishaw was already deploying for up to 1000 staff for instant messaging and presence awareness. Lyall says: “We are looking to extend Microsoft Lync 2010 to web conferencing and voice as well as considering the next wave of Microsoft cloud technologies.”

BenefitsRenishaw has made significant savings by migrating its messaging and collaboration infrastructure to Microsoft Office 365 and Exchange Online. With the cloud solution, the firm avoided having to invest in new physical hardware and technical support across it regions. All staff now have mobile connectivity from any device, with unlimited storage. Access anywhere ensures that remote workers can access their email at any time.

• Renishaw takes advantage of Microsoft Enterprise Agreement to lower costs.

With a year left on its Microsoft Enterprise Agreement for low-cost volume licensing of software, this cost advantage was critical for the Renishaw board of directors. Lyall says: “The solution also removed the expense of the Webroot email filtering service because we now have Microsoft Forefront Online Protection for Exchange.”

• New acquisitions are integrated easily. Office 365 aligns with the strategic aims of Renishaw by making it easier to integrate new acquisitions through greater agility and time to market of the cloud service. Lyall says: “We’ve already got a few sites to move to the cloud, such as Renishaw group company Measurement Devices in York and one of our subsidiaries in the USA.”

• Mobile connectivity across any device offers pathway to bring-your-own-device policy. Lyall says: “Office 365 adds huge value to the business and will take the pressure off the IT team when we want to use iPad, iPhone, and Windows devices. Our people working remotely now have flexible access to email and the solution integrates well with Microsoft Lync 2010 unified communications.”

• Larger mailboxes earn the approval of users by removing the need to manage personal folders. Larger mailboxes have decreased the governance issues of managing personal storage folders on laptops. They have been welcomed by the workforce. Lyall says: “This has been the single main attraction for business users, especially now that they all have 25-gigabyte mailboxes.”

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Document published June 2013