Challenge

With many office locations, over 1000 staff and a myriad of systems and devices, The Firm approached 9X5 to conduct and independent audit of their systems, active accounts, software licensing, infrastructure utilisation and security posture.

Solution

This project was initiated in 2021 which added a level of complexity due to COVID lockdowns in Melbourne at the time. As a result, much of the work was conducted offsite, with limited access to the client’s Melbourne Office.

Despite these challenges, 9X5 assembled a team comprising of 1 Project Manager, 1 Solution Architect and 2 Analysts.

The initial area of concern was on Active Directory Accounts as there were over 1900 active accounts, yet only 1100 staff and 200 system accounts at the time. A deep dive on Active Directory was conducted to understand which accounts should be deactivated, whether policies were breached keeping them open and making recommendations as to which accounts could be closed or migrated.

As part of the investigation, licensing and utilisation of on-premise and cloud servers was also reviewed with recommendations made on which machines could be consolidated or shut down.
The team conducted the analysis and provided their recommendation in 65 days.

Impact

The analysis and recommendations report identified over 600 user accounts that could be shut down or mitogated, which represented a large cost saving to the client.
In addition, by reviewing their server usage and identifying which servers were required on premise, they identfied over 20 servers which could be migrated into the cloud, streamlining their operations and reducing ICT operating costs.