International law firm Trowers & Hamlins has significantly revamped its global network infrastructure, eliminating key single points of failure and allowing for vital security updates without disrupting services. This network transformation was executed by ANSecurity when Trowers & Hamlins downsized its primary office and datacenter footprint and relocated core services to a dedicated co-location facility.
Trowers & Hamlins, with over 170 partners and more than 1,000 employees across the UK, Middle East, and Asia, used this move to streamline its infrastructure, enhance resilience, and boost capacity for remote workers, branch offices, and cloud-connected services. Previously, the firm managed two separate datacenter networks with limited connectivity between them. The new initiative by ANSecurity has established a single logical datacenter architecture designed to better support workload mobility and disaster recovery. This upgrade reinforces resilience across branch office connectivity, remote user access, core security services, and datacenter networking.
Addressed Planned Downtime
The upgrade also tackled planned downtime related to infrastructure maintenance. Initially, routine security updates required service outages. With the new architecture, critical security updates can now be implemented without affecting service availability, enabling IT teams to swiftly address emerging vulnerabilities.
Anthony Mann, Infrastructure Manager at Trowers & Hamlins, emphasized the importance of resilience and availability, stating: “Resilience and availability are critical for us because our people need reliable access to systems and services wherever they are working. As our infrastructure requirements evolved, we wanted to create an environment that would reduce complexity, strengthen business continuity and give us greater flexibility for the future.”
Physical Datacenter Relocation
Previously, the firm managed two separate datacenter networks with limited connectivity between them
Mann added, “Moving our datacentre services gave us an opportunity to rethink the underlying architecture rather than simply replicate what we had before. Working with ANSecurity, we were able to take a phased approach to the transformation, validating the new environment ahead of the physical move and reducing the risk around the migration. We now have a more resilient and scalable network that is simpler for our IT team to manage, while also allowing us to carry out critical security updates without disrupting services for users.”
To minimize migration risks, ANSecurity split the project into two phases, deploying and validating the new architecture before relocating the physical datacenter. Detailed migration plans were developed in collaboration with Trowers & Hamlins' IT teams and third-party providers.
Supporting Future Growth
ANSecurity supported the physical relocation to the co-location facility, achieving the migration with minimal disruption and only minor issues which were swiftly resolved. The project has improved network capacity, centralized configuration, reduced duplication, and standardized branch office deployments.
With more than 750 users accessing services remotely, the redesigned network enhances remote access availability and is equipped to support future growth. This endeavor continues a partnership between Trowers & Hamlins and ANSecurity that has lasted over seven years, including a prior global SD-WAN deployment to modernize connectivity across international offices and minimize reliance on legacy WAN technologies.
International law firm Trowers & Hamlins has overhauled its global network infrastructure, removing key single points of failure and enabling critical security updates to be carried out without service outages.
The network transformation, delivered by ANSecurity, was undertaken as Trowers & Hamlins reduced its primary office and datacentre footprint and relocated core datacentre services to a dedicated co-location facility.
Cloud-connected services
The firm, which has more than 170 partners and over 1,000 employees across the UK, Middle East and Asia, wanted to use the move to simplify its infrastructure, improve resilience and provide greater capacity for remote workers, branch offices and cloud-connected services.
Its existing architecture consisted of two separate datacentre networks, with a limited number of networks stretched between them. Trowers & Hamlins wanted to replace this with a single logical datacentre architecture that could better support workload mobility and disaster recovery. ANSecurity designed and implemented the new architecture, strengthening resilience across branch office connectivity, remote user access, core security services and datacentre networking.
Addressed planned downtime
The project also addressed planned downtime associated with infrastructure maintenance. Previously, routine security updates and maintenance could require outages and approved maintenance windows. The new architecture allows critical security updates to be applied while services remain available, enabling the IT team to respond more quickly to emerging vulnerabilities.
Anthony Mann, Infrastructure Manager at Trowers & Hamlins, said: “Resilience and availability are critical for us because our people need reliable access to systems and services wherever they are working. As our infrastructure requirements evolved, we wanted to create an environment that would reduce complexity, strengthen business continuity and give us greater flexibility for the future.”
Physical datacentre relocation
“Moving our datacentre services gave us an opportunity to rethink the underlying architecture rather than simply replicate what we had before. Working with ANSecurity, we were able to take a phased approach to the transformation, validating the new environment ahead of the physical move and reducing the risk around the migration. We now have a more resilient and scalable network that is simpler for our IT team to manage, while also allowing us to carry out critical security updates without disrupting services for users.”
To reduce migration risk, ANSecurity divided the program into two phases rather than carrying out the architectural transformation at the same time as the physical datacentre relocation. The new architecture was deployed and validated first, with detailed migration plans and runbooks agreed between ANSecurity, the law firm’s internal IT teams and specialist third-party providers.
Supporting future growth
ANSecurity then provided support during the physical relocation of infrastructure to the new co-location facility. The migration was completed with minimal disruption to business operations, with only minor issues encountered and resolved during the move. The project has also increased network capacity and simplified infrastructure management through centralized configuration, reduced duplication and standardized branch office deployments.
More than 750 users access services remotely through Trowers & Hamlins’ application delivery platform. The redesigned environment provides greater availability for remote access services alongside improved branch connectivity and increased capacity to support future growth.
The latest project builds on a relationship between Trowers & Hamlins and ANSecurity spanning more than seven years. ANSecurity has previously supported the law firm’s global SD-WAN rollout, helping modernise connectivity across its international offices and reduce reliance on legacy WAN technologies.
