1. The Arthur Terry
Learning Partnership
A key factor in
choosing to engage
with C24 for this
project was our
close relationship
with Microsoft.
David Ricketts,
Head of Marketing C24
Introduction
The Arthur Terry Learning Partnership is a consortium of 7 schools based in the
Midlands; comprising of three secondary schools and four primary schools. IT
plays a critical role in helping the schools to achieve their objectives for
operational excellence and superior learning experiences.
C24 was approached by the Arthur Terry Learning Partnership (ATLP) to assist
with an organisation-wide migration from on-premise email and Microsoft Office
applications to a hybrid cloud solution via the Office 365 platform.
Head of IT Delivery, Chris Butler, led the project from within the ATLP and was
responsible for a seamless migration between services so that the schools could
continue to deliver high standards of technology services to students at a
reduced cost.
Situation
Prior to the migration project, all three secondary schools had an on-premise
deployment of Microsoft Exchange, whilst each of the primary schools
consumed a hosted email service from a third party provider. In both instances,
the level of service was not able to keep pace with increasing.
In-house IT systems were ageing and required upgrading to cope with demand,
whilst the primary schools’ hosted service was not able to deliver effective
collaboration services. This would result in an unsustainable model in the long
term; creating obstacles for the schools to achieve their ongoing objectives.
Schools were unable to communicate between each other in a simple and cost-
effective manner using existing systems, and flexible collaboration was not
possible between different devices and locations.
Added to this, space onsite at the secondary schools for datacentre IT
equipment was rapidly running out so adding to the existing infrastructure was
not an option.
Objective
The Arthur Terry Learning Partnership wanted to continue delivering an excellent
standard of IT to all of their students and staff, in a bid to reduce time wasted
in lessons due to issues created by legacy IT systems and to make learning and
collaborating easier.
These technology objectives needed to be achieved whilst reducing IT spend,
so that students could access their learning materials and information at home,
at school and from mobile devices without the school incurring high setup costs.
Company:
Industry:
Education
Location:
Kittoe Road, Sutton Coldfield,
West Midlands B74 4R.
CASE STUDY

2. Challenge
The challenge for the ATLP migration project was in
part due to the schools having a mix of on-premise
Exchange environments and hosted solutions; so a
one-size-fits-all approach would not work. This meant
that a phased approach was required, to move
students on different platforms over to the new
solution with minimal disruption.
Due to the number of users that the overall partnership
is responsible for, approximately 4,500 students and
staff, it was critical that any provider could ensure the
seamless transition of services between on-premise
and cloud Exchange environments.
Furthermore, in order to comply with data governance
regulations, the ATLP needed to ensure that any emails
or data would be located within the European Union at
all times. This requirement was non-negotiable and a
critical success factor.
Overall, these challenges had to be overcome whilst
being cost-effective and not incurring further
additional cost to the learning partnership. The
consortium of schools required an efficient and
straightforward approach to their new application
delivery.
Choosing a Supplier
Although Exchange migrations can often be a
straightforward process, the scale of the project added
complexity. The Arthur Terry Learning Partnership has
over 4500 active users, across its student and staff
base, who needed to be migrated to their new
Exchange environments overnight when it would not
cause disruption to learning or working activities. This
complexity and scale meant that many suppliers were
unprepared for the phased migration plan required by
the ATLP.
Chris Butler, Head of IT Delivery, had worked with C24
Ltd for a number of years, contracting helpdesk and
support services from the midlands based hosting and
IT provider. C24 was the natural choice when it came
to selecting a technology partner to
assist with migrating the Exchange
solution to Office 365.
The ATLP also considered other cloud application and
email services but the higher costs and lack of integration
with the school partnership’s Microsoft backend
infrastructure meant that it did not make commercial or
technical sense to pursue further. Microsoft’s education
pricing resulted in the ATLP making cost savings and
reducing any required integration work with the existing
on-premise IT solutions.
Outcomes
Students have not noticed any disruption
or change to their mail services;
highlighting how the migration was
completed non-disruptively.
Staff communication within and between
schools has increased and become more
efficient and collaborative through the use
of Skype for Business and its instant
messaging functionality.
Staff and students can now call between
schools more cost-effectively via Skype,
receive responses more quickly through
instant messaging and share files and work
documents.
IT teams can now deliver remote support
via desktop sharing, resulting in issues fixed
quickly without travel time.
Students can collaborate with each other
through Office 365’s communication
systems.
There is a seamless link between a
student’s files at school and at home;
meaning they can access learning materials
wherever they are.
The ATLP have benefitted from being able
to offer free Office Professional 2013
packages to students due to
the school’s enterprise
Microsoft licence.
As Chris Butler, Head of
IT Delivery, commented,
“It just works.”

3. Why Office 365?
The ATLP ultimately chose Microsoft’s Office 365 solution due to its
ready-made integration capabilities with the schools’ existing
Microsoft deployments. The fact that the service was a proven
solution with clear migration paths for each legacy scenario meant
that the project was less risky, especially with the user numbers that
the ATLP was having to cater for.
Microsoft’s education pricing meant that the solution was financially
accessible for the schools within their constrained IT budgets and
each month additional free-of-charge, extra services are added to
the solution by Microsoft as they develop updates.
Chris Butler highlighted the lower staff resources required by the
ATLP to focus on managing the underlying server estate, Exchange
environment and Microsoft applications now that the solution is in
place. Staff can instead focus on implementing new solutions that
help the school to achieve its key objectives in the future.
Importantly, the ATLP had the option of choosing for their data to
be stored in Microsoft’s EU datacentres, enabling them to meet their
data protection requirements. This differed to some other providers
that did not offer the ability to select where data would be retained.
Chris Butler, Head of IT Delivery, commented, “Microsoft’s solution
not only brought many technology benefits to the Arthur Terry
Learning Partnership, but it also gives us access to the strategic
foresight of a worldwide technology provider such as Microsoft
about how we should be aligning our IT environments to achieve
the partnership’s operational objectives.”
Why C24?
The Arthur Terry Learning Partnership has worked with C24 Ltd for
a number of years, with C24 providing a range of services from
delivery of server, networking and desktop appliances through to
helpdesk support and onsite consultancy services.
A key factor in choosing to engage with C24 for this project was their
close relationship with Microsoft, as the midlands based application
hosting provider currently offers a range of on-premise, privately
hosted and Azure cloud services to clients across the Microsoft
technology stack. Being Microsoft expert consultants, C24 were able
to engage at all stages of the project from planning through to
delivery and migration.
Next Steps
The Arthur Terry Partnership is now
evaluating other ways that cloud
services can be integrated into their
organisation to strengthen the
services they deliver to students.
They recognise that due to the
complexity of their environment it is
likely that they will continue to adopt
a hybrid cloud approach, where some
services remain on premise, some are
delivered by 3rd party specialist
providers and others are consumed
from the cloud.
“Microsoft’s solution not only
brought many technology benefits
to the Arthur Terry Learning
Partnership, but it also gives us
access to the strategic foresight of
a worldwide technology provider.”
Chris Butler, Head of IT Delivery
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