Iconic Salisbury Cathedral invests in Microsoft Cloud

Key Contact(s): Richard Gurd - Finance & IT Strategy Lead
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Partner(s): Microsoft

The system is not only robust it helps us be very responsive. If there are early warning signals of a potential systems issue, we know immediately and we can get it resolved from any location.  We just couldn’t have done that before. – Richard Gurd, Finance & IT Strategy Lead

Salisbury Cathedral logo 2

Salisbury Cathedral is one of England’s finest medieval cathedrals – attracting over 500,000 visitors each year.

Salisbury Cathedral receives no subsidies, charges no entrance fees, and has to be entirely self-sufficient through visitor donations and the support of a 600-strong volunteer group. Yet it is also required to operate to the same standards and regulations as private and public sector organisations.

Working with Xperience, Salisbury Cathedral now operates in the cloud with Microsoft 365 for email, productivity applications, Windows Server, virtual servers, and file storage.

Creating this environment was taken in small, gradual phases to suit Salisbury Cathedral’s needs, which has “brought Salisbury Cathedral into the 21st century – there are no compatibility issues anymore or systems going down. I’ve no doubt that everyone is much happier!” Richard Gurd, Finance & IT Strategy Lead, Salisbury Cathedral.

The Challenge

Salisbury Cathedral’s IT infrastructure was nearing end of life and was unable to support the Cathedral’s strategic direction. Limitations were brought on by slow machines and working with different versions of software. There was also a concern about the security of Salisbury Cathedral’s environment with users accessing from multiple devices and locations with no uniform control. As a charity and donation-funded organisation, Salisbury Cathedral didn’t have the luxury of rolling out a single, all-encompassing IT refresh programme. Budget constraints meant that upgrades to the environment had to be made in small, gradual phases without causing further disruption.

The Solution: Microsoft Cloud

Xperience worked with Salisbury Cathedral carrying out a strategic IT review – presenting an approach to reduce cost and maximise resources whilst still providing the team with the most advanced IT tools available.

Salisbury Cathedral moved to:

  • Operating in the Cloud with Microsoft 365 for email and productivity applications
  • Windows Server and 2 virtual servers for a SQL Server
  • Microsoft Intune (Mobile Device Management & Mobile Application Management)
  • File storage

Xperience are providing Salisbury Cathedral with a comprehensive support service for desktops, devices, networks, and servers which includes remote maintenance and helpdesk support.

Result

For the first time, the Cathedral’s staff are able to access their information from anywhere, with secure, reliable Cloud connectivity.

Combined with regular patching from Xperience’s support desk Salisbury Cathedral has access to real-time status updates, removing any business disruption.

Being aware of Salisbury Cathedral’s budget constraints Xperience implemented a flexible ‘per user, per month’ payment model, giving the Cathedral complete control over how quickly they grow and how much they invest – whilst still being able to adopt new technologies.

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