Project Description

The Scottish National Investment Bank (“the Bank”) were looking to replace the Scottish Government technology solution and managed service, they were operating on at launch.  After a competitive tender process, Bridgeall were appointed to implement and support a new tailored solution that included the procurement, setup and ongoing managed IT  support of the business.

“The Bridgeall team’s approach to the technology delivery project was perfect for our needs – collaborative, flexible and pragmatic.  We couldn’t have asked for a better team to work with.” – Stuart McLaughlin, Head of Information Technology, Scottish National Investment Bank

About Scottish National Investment Bank

Based in Edinburgh, the Scottish National Investment Bank is Scotland’s first development investment bank, wholly owned by the Scottish Ministers on behalf of the people of Scotland. The Bank is an impact investor, focussed on delivering both commercial returns and mission impacts with its investments. The Scottish National Investment Bank invests in businesses and projects connected to Scotland to deliver long term, patient debt, or equity investment where the private market is failing to provide the support businesses and projects require to grow. Their missions include: supporting Scotland’s transition to Net Zero, building communities and promoting equality, as well as harnessing innovation to enable people to flourish.

Challenges facing Scottish National Investment Bank

The Scottish National Investment Bank launched as an independent organisation in November 2020 and had committed to migrate from the Scottish Government-provided managed services and devices in short timescales. This would give the required flexibility and control over technology choices to support their business operations. They also wanted to outsource their IT to a managed IT support provider.

This was all due to be completed during Covid and the lockdown period which came with its own challenges.

Bridgeall initially undertook a review and discovery exercise to fully assess the Bank’s requirements, systems and existing setup. Bridgeall then devised a solution for the Bank, operating with a serverless environment utilising Microsoft Cloud Services based on a zero-trust security model.

The implementation included Enterprise E5 subscriptions for the core business applications within Office 365, supported by the Enterprise Mobility and Security E5 delivering enhanced security for users, data, and full management of all user endpoint devices.

Allocation of devices across the business

Laptop devices were provided through Dell, registered for Autopilot providing auto-enrolment into Microsoft Endpoint Manager (Intune). The Autopilot system setup preconfigured the new devices, so they were ready to use right out of the box, with business applications, add-in’s, IT monitoring and Wi-Fi access automatically deployed and configured for the users without any IT input.

Mobile phones and tablets were also managed through Microsoft Endpoint Manager (Intune) providing a comprehensive mobile device management (MDM) and mobile application management (MAM) solution for both corporate and personal devices, ensuring access to company data was fully secure and audited.

Exporting existing and shared mailboxes

Existing user and shared mailboxes hosted within the Scottish Government Data Centre were exported to PST files and imported to Exchange Online. This method was used because the Scottish Government Exchange servers were inaccessible to the internet and couldn’t be accessed by Exchange Online to provide a hybrid connectivity or connected to by external migration tools. Data extracts were taken from file shares and the document management system eRDM to temporary Cloud Storage in Azure where the files we then transferred into SharePoint Online using the Microsoft SharePoint Migration Tool and PowerShell scripts. Users’ personal files were also transferred in the same way into OneDrive for Business.

Managed IT Support

Following the setup of the new technology approach we moved into our BAU managed IT support, providing full IT helpdesk services. Working in partnership with SNIB we proactively monitor their IT to ensure minimum downtime and to keep their IT estate secure from cyber criminals. We have quarterly updates, improvement plans and regular site visits when needed.

Bridgeall were able to deliver the following benefits to the client:

  • A seamless transition – We were able to migrate data from the old environment to the new seamlessly.
  • Time – The project was delivered quickly with very minimum downtime. The use of Autopilot for the new devices also saved time as setup required no IT input and were configured straight from the supplier.

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