The University of Leeds has started to make a £multi-million IT cost saving after moving to a scalable and high-performance Microsoft Azure cloud solution as part of its 2020 strategy, with the help of cloud and managed services provider, ANS Group.

Following a cloud readiness assessment and a rigorous tender process, ANS is now set to build a bespoke self-service, hybrid cloud solution and migrate the majority of the University’s on-premises services to cloud services such as Microsoft Azure over the next 12 months.

The project will enable the University to create new technology platforms to securely manage teaching, research and corporate applications, as well as significantly lowering operational costs and support growth to meet future demand as the University expands.

The Microsoft Azure platform will also enable a step change in the quality, volume and impact of world-leading research. The academic community can easily view approval workflows for new research initiatives whilst managing budgets for IT services more effectively.

As part of the project, ANS will support the University in fully utilising its new cloud environment with a fully-managed service, complete with 24x7x365 monitoring to reduce risk of security incidents and an experienced team to provide advice and support when required.

Karl Grocock, Head of Infrastructure, at the University of Leeds, said: “ANS’ extensive experience in the higher education sector made the company an ideal partner for us, and its team have gone above and beyond to make this large-scale transition as smooth as possible for our IT team and wider staff, and we look forward to seeing the growth that we can achieve going forward.”

Andy Barrow, CTO at ANS, said: “With such an expansive IT estate, the University of Leeds required a team that could rapidly bring this into one place. Following initial consultations, we could see the potential for the University to scale up its IT infrastructure. The savings made are testament to the team’s ability to deliver complex and tailored solutions within a strict timeframe.”