Dixon Wilson is a Chartered Accounted based in London.
Its 150 employees specialise in the provision of tax, accountancy and advisory services to high net worth private clients, including their families, trusts and businesses. It also helps corporate clients, supplemented by an additional office in Paris.
For Dixon Wilson’s clients, secure and reliable continuity has become as important as getting value for money. It’s important the firm can assure them of their data’s security.
Wayne Hammond is Dixon Wilson’s IT Manager. His primary focus is the firm’s security, as well as being responsible for its infrastructure including Disaster Recovery and Backup.
“Before moving to our current headquarters in Chancery Lane, we were based in Thomas More Square. When it was time to move, we kept a small office in the original building. We had a rack with a couple of servers doing simple replication with HP Storage Mirroring.
“Once the lease expired on the old office, we had to use a third party provider for resilience. We initially considered using a data centre, taking a rack and some dedicated hardware. However, after reviewing the market, DRaaS was inescapably the best option.
“We needed a provider who could bring us better efficiency, security and reliability.”
Another challenge is new client demands. As people get more tech savvy, Dixon Wilson’s clients are becoming more discerning about data protection. They want to know about security, DR, backup, storage and encryption.
For Dixon Wilson’s clients, secure and reliable continuity has become as important as getting value for money. It’s important the firm can assure them of their data’s security.
Because of the sensitivity of our clients’ data and the rigour of our work, it takes us a while to trust external providers – but Databarracks have boosted our security and availability.
Dixon Wilson now uses Disaster Recovery as a Service, with Zerto replicating to The Bunker – Databarracks’ secure data centre.
“At first, we were using Veeam technology for Disaster Recovery. Our environment includes some heavy SQL servers, which were affecting our RTO. At that time, our recovery time was at six and a half hours before our environment was back up and running.
“After talking to Databarracks, we knew Zerto was the answer. It solved two major problems – speed and reliability. As part of the service, Databarracks migrated us over to the new technology. Our recovery time has fallen to an hour – a massive improvement.
“We try to keep our infrastructure in house as much as possible, to retain as much control as we can. “However, we were happy for Databarracks to look after our Disaster Recovery capability. Throughout our relationship, including migrating over to new technologies, we’ve had confidence in their ability to enhance our resilience and availability.”
Wayne notes, “It was easy to get sign off from management. The installation process was straightforward and painless, with minimal disruption to everyday business systems.
“With Zerto and Databarracks for DR, it frees up more time for me to look at future projects. For example, we’re revamping our Document Management System to save time for staff.
“The solution ticks along nicely and looks after itself. I always have an eye on it – I have a dedicated tab in my browser and real-time alerts set up, so I’m always aware of goings on. On the occasions when I do need to get involved, our dedicated Databarracks team is always available and helpful when we need them.”
The DR solution has allowed Dixon Wilson to strike the right balance between security and productivity. Security has always been Wayne’s focus, but day-to-day work can suffer if security overrides usability, rather than enabling it. Staff need to help clients effectively whilst operating securely.
“We’re always looking to balance top drawer security with usability that doesn’t impede staff. Our DR solution helps to make that possible. Customers are also increasingly asking us about our data security and availability measures. We can keep clients updated and assured regarding Dixon Wilson’s DR capabilities.”