Case Study: Business Continuity with Cloud PBX,
Azure WVD, and Teams

Maintaining Business Continuity in a Pandemic with Cloud PBX, Azure Windows Virtual Desktops, and Office 365

Background:

KBS is a leading provider of managed services and technical services, supporting the technology products and Cloud infrastructure of thousands of companies and over 500,000 end users. KBS has been operating non-stop on a 24/7/365 basis for over 16 years, fully available by phone, email, and chat. When the pandemic of March 2020 arrived, KBS could not let its customers down and have a blemish on its impeccable record. With a total shutdown looming in its multiple offices, KBS needed Apps4Rent’s help in quickly moving its legacy communication systems and office IT infrastructure to the public Cloud.

Apps4Rent’s Solution:

Apps4Rent came to the rescue with an elegant solution that combined a Cloud-based IP-PBX, Microsoft Office 365 with Teams, multi-session Windows virtual desktops, Azure Active Directory, and employee performance monitoring software. As a result, there was no deterioration in service quality or SLAs for the end users, and the productivity of its 75-people workforce improved while working from home.

Instead of a traditional PBX, Apps4Rent setup Issabel IP PBX in the Cloud as it is provided robust security and superior features with recording capabilities that do not yet exist in Teams. Then Apps4Rent configured the calling queues on Microsoft Teams, setup call forwarding, and made it functional in a crisis scenario.

Office desktops were moved to multi-session Windows virtual desktops on Azure and an employee monitoring software with granular activity tracking was installed on each virtual desktop. Azure AD was used to manage access and permissions for the different applications used by KBS staff according to their roles and security levels. Applications included chat software, ticketing system, and Office 365. KBS was already using Office 365 and Teams for collaboration before the pandemic, but now the power of this software was exploited to the hilt to work in real time from multiple locations.

Results:

Apps4Rent delivered what KBS required – No disruptions in business operations due to high availability of appropriate infrastructure. With Apps4Rent’s expertise, the migration of on-premises calling infrastructure to cloud was performed seamlessly. All the while getting improved productivity out of the employees in the work-from-home mode. There was a noticeable increase in appreciations from customers, as they were surprised by the quick response from KBS team in contrast to poor service from well-known companies during the pandemic.