Helping Law Ruler to Scale With Cloud Cost Optimization
Overview
Law Ruler approached Techary to design and procure new infrastructure to help them continue to scale their operation as Public Cloud costs were spiralling upwards. After some digging, we soon realized the answer was to optimize, not to replace.
Law Ruler is a complete end-to-end CRM and Practice management solution for Litigation and Plaintiff Law Firms. Law Ruler software takes traditional, complex workflows and transforms them into simple dynamic processes.
Problem
Our solution
Law Ruler provides a fully-featured application, hosted within Microsoft Azure. As they continued to onboard more customers and store more data, they required continual growth of their infrastructure to support these additional workloads. The team tried to work with Microsoft directly to help plan for this continual growth and provide a suitable solution, but to no avail.
As Law Ruler continued to grow, their Azure costs were spiralling out of control. They needed help finding the most commercially viable way to continue growing their infrastructure.
Not knowing what to do, and with little help directly from Microsoft, Law Ruler turned to Techary. Initially, the team wanted to consider their options. The rising Public Cloud costs meant the team was focused on building out their own Private Cloud infrastructure.
Given the critical nature of Law Ruler's function and the applications that it runs, Techary recommended that a full review of the environment was performed. This enabled us to gain insight into the infrastructure, with a view to providing an unbiased external opinion on the best way to approach the problem.
Our Microsoft certified solutions architects reviewed the Azure environment to gain an understanding of the current issues Law Ruler were facing. Immediately, it was evident that there was potential to optimize in several areas. These included: use of outdated subscription plans, use of reserved instances and use of Azure Hybrid Use Benefit for OS licensing. Our team created a report that showed Law Ruler the potential optimization and savings they could make without the need to purchase infrastructure.
Looking at a Private Cloud solution was a real value add for the Law Ruler team, who hadn’t previously considered this option.
Given the critical nature of Law Ruler's function and the applications that it runs, Techary recommended that a full review of the environment was performed. This enabled us to gain insight into the infrastructure, with a view to providing an unbiased external opinion on the best way to approach the problem.
Our Microsoft certified solutions architects reviewed the Azure environment to gain an understanding of the current issues Law Ruler were facing. Immediately, it was evident that there was potential to optimize in several areas. These included: use of outdated subscription plans, use of reserved instances and use of Azure Hybrid Use Benefit for OS licensing. Our team created a report that showed Law Ruler the potential optimization and savings they could make without the need to purchase infrastructure.
Looking at a Private Cloud solution was a real value add for the Law Ruler team, who hadn’t previously considered this option.
Confusing. Law Ruler's internal tech team knew what they needed, but just didn't know or fully understand all of the options within the Microsoft Azure offering. The team were impressed with the indicative options that Techary had provided at the review stage, so engaged us to perform a comprehensive optimization project that involved three key stages; consolidation, resource migration and continual improvement.
Helping the team to navigate all of Azure's 6000+ products and services and ensuring Law Ruler operated an aligned, best-fit stack, this was just what the internal team needed.
The Techary team set to work. We devised a project plan to help implement the savings presented within our auditing report.
These included:
- Adoption of Reserved Instances to save up-to 75% on compute costs
- Migration of Subscription to Azure Plan on CSP
- Implementation of Azure Hybrid Use Benefit to save on OS licensing costs and use previously purchased Software Assurance Benefit
- Complete review of components, resources and removal of un-necessary costs
We began to implement savings from day one, all whilst working within a live environment. We began to implement savings from day one, all whilst working within a live environment. Due to the highly important function Law Ruler’s software provides it’s customers, it was important there was no downtime.
The team identified changes that could be completed with no risk or impact to live operations, and subsequently scheduled all impacting work during pre-defined maintenance windows.
The project was completed within six weeks of inception and all of the optimization components were successfully implemented.
These included:
- Adoption of Reserved Instances to save up-to 75% on compute costs
- Migration of Subscription to Azure Plan on CSP
- Implementation of Azure Hybrid Use Benefit to save on OS licensing costs and use previously purchased Software Assurance Benefit
- Complete review of components, resources and removal of un-necessary costs
We began to implement savings from day one, all whilst working within a live environment. We began to implement savings from day one, all whilst working within a live environment. Due to the highly important function Law Ruler’s software provides it’s customers, it was important there was no downtime.
The team identified changes that could be completed with no risk or impact to live operations, and subsequently scheduled all impacting work during pre-defined maintenance windows.
The project was completed within six weeks of inception and all of the optimization components were successfully implemented.
Provide continual, centralized support for the Azure solution as Law Ruler continues to expand its operations.
Previously, Law Ruler’s team were raising queries and questions directly with Microsoft. Without fully understanding the solution, it sometimes meant that issues or questions were misunderstood and took additional time for the internal team to work through.
Working with Techary and having moved the subscription to CSP, the Law Ruler team now directly log incidents or questions with Techary’s Microsoft certified engineers. This results in a faster time to resolution and provides them with the ability to talk through improvements or simple questions with a team who knows their business and people.
Working with Techary and having moved the subscription to CSP, the Law Ruler team now directly log incidents or questions with Techary’s Microsoft certified engineers. This results in a faster time to resolution and provides them with the ability to talk through improvements or simple questions with a team who knows their business and people.
Results:
“Microsoft would not do much to help us and continued to refer us to their website. Techary reviewed our services and lowered our costs by changing our licensing structure and building us a discount program. Techary took the time to educate us on change and how to impact long-term for the better. Techary is a great resource, and we would blindly recommend them to anyone!”
– Chief Technology Officer, Law Ruler
Public Cloud Optimization
Reduction of over 35% in monthly costs, with a total saving in excess of $100k+ over the term of the solution.
Forward Thinking Partner
Law Ruler engages Techary to help them to continually innovate and ensure they are getting the most from their technology.
Industry Leading Support
Law Ruler now benefits from direct access to Techary supporting their environment, with immediate access to certified engineers, rather than engaging with Microsoft directly.
