A case study examining a recent successful cloud migration project to Microsoft Azure. Leveraging Azure's IaaS and PaaS offerings, SHBrooks is now a 100% cloud hosted organization.

1. GOAL 1:
CLOUD
MIGRATION
GOAL 2:
SECURE ACCESS
AND FTP
GOAL 3:
ENABLE SECURE
TELEWORK
Client Case Study
Client
SHBrooks
Services
Cloud Migration
BACKGROUND
Founded in 1981, SHBrooks is a Boston-based software and consulting business providing higher education
institutions with valuable analysis and insights about student enrollment behavior and financial-aid packaging.
Specializing in data acquisition, statistical techniques, and enrollment data warehousing, SHBrooks analyzes and
evaluates the effectiveness of financial-aid packaging for new and continuing
students, providing recommendations to increase revenue, academic profile, and
total enrollment for colleges and universities nationwide.
CHALLENGE
As a small organization with a few physical servers on-premises, SHBrooks realized the tremendous advantages
of cloud computing, such as security, stability, and cost control. “We provide a series of software analytic tools to
our clients, so data infrastructure is very important to what we do,” said Stephen Brooks, the company’s founder
and CEO. “With highly-sensitive data on millions of college applicants, and data impacting decisions made on the
allocation of millions of dollars in financial aid, security is an absolute priority for us,” he added.
Specifically, the company needed a secure platform for clients to log
into, plus better file transfer security to upload enrollment and financial
aid data to SHBrooks’ systems. For the company’s remote workers,
SHBrooks required an encrypted method to access the company’s
infrastructure from anywhere, including overseas.
Minimizing downtime during the cloud migration was also a key
requirement.
Mr. Brooks' initial experience with a Boston IT firm proved
disappointing. “We worked with a local IT group in the Boston area, but
we weren’t happy with their services, lack of responsiveness, pricing,
and knowledge of our business,” he recalled.
SOLUTION
From initial conversations with Metrolink Networks, Mr. Brooks was immediately impressed with its people.
“From the get-go, it was clear that this was a relationship that would work extremely well with our needs,” he said,
recalling his initial conversation with Metrolink Networks Founder and CTO, Husein Sharaf. “We talked, and he
seemed very able to handle my requirements, especially after he shared some case studies demonstrating
success for clients with similar needs.
137 National Plaza, Suite 300 | National Harbor, Maryland 20745 | P: 202-803-6500 | mail@metrolinknetworks.com

2. 137 National Plaza, Suite 300 | National Harbor, Maryland 20745 | P: 202-803-6500 | mail@metrolinknetworks.com
Client Case Study
“I really enjoy working with Husein and his team at Metrolink Networks. He’s helped us quickly
and efficiently with a number of problems that would have been very hard for us to solve.”
Stephen Brooks - Founder and CEO
Metrolink Networks began the process by analyzing SHBrooks’
existing environment and providing recommendations. Microsoft
Azure was the recommended cloud environment, given the many
available integrations with other Microsoft applications that
SHBrooks already leveraged. It also provides a flexible and scalable
platform with a focus on security, privacy, and transparency, all of
which were high priorities for SHBrooks.
After performing several tests to ensure that the systems would
transfer into the Azure environment as planned, Metrolink Networks
executed the full migration seamlessly. In less than 30 days,
SHBrooks had completely migrated from an on-premise server
closet to a highly-stable and secure cloud environment.
RESULTS
“We now have virtual machines, a series of secure drives and a very robust FTP system for our clients to securely
submit their data to our environment for analysis,” said Mr. Brooks. “It’s running in a very secure, high-end cloud
platform, following all of the industry’s best practices for security, privacy and continuity of operations.”
Recounting a recent experience with one client’s stringent data protection policy, Mr. Brooks said, “One client’s
IT department sent us a 10-page questionnaire to ensure adherence to their strict standards of security, and we
were completely compliant with every single requirement, thanks to our new cloud environment.”
CONCLUSION
Working with Husein Sharaf and the team at Metrolink Networks was an equally positive experience for SHBrooks.
“He’s very clever, smart and capable,” Mr. Brooks summarizes his impression of Mr. Sharaf. “He’s extremely
responsive and easy to work with. He came in, did exactly what I needed, and now he’s helping us with any IT
needs that we may have, forevermore. I really enjoy working with Husein and his team at Metrolink Networks.
He’s helped us quickly and efficiently with a number of problems that would have been very hard for us to solve.”
METROLINK NETWORKS’ MISSION
Enabling our clients’ success through excellence in technology services,
delivered in a friendly and trustworthy manner.
ALL-CLOUD INFRASTRUCTURE
SECURE ENVIRONMENT
SECURE CLIENT ACCESS
SECURE FTP UPLOADS
ZERO DOWNTIME
SECURE TELEWORK ACCESS
© Copyright Metrolink Networks 2018. All Rights Reserved.
“From the get-go, it was clear that this was a relationship that would work extremely well with our needs.”
Stephen Brooks - Founder and CEO