Kent County Council has completed a device refresh to standardise its technology onto Microsoft and support hybrid working.
The council has aligned its hardware and software on Microsoft technology with the roll out of 9,000 Microsoft Surface devices, working with managed services provider Cantium. The company is now providing a managed service under which application access and device ordering has become self-service within the council.
Speaking about the device upgrade, Lisa Gannon, director of technology, Kent County Council, said: “The transition to Surface devices will resolve long-standing issues from ageing hardware and facilitate a ‘hands-off’ deployment and disposal process that aligns with our modern work practices.”
Cantium said that moving device management to a service provider is expected to reduce calls to the council’s support desk and reduce the total cost of ownership of hardware.
Vendor relationship management
The company will also manage the relationship between the council and its existing vendors for the procurement, delivery, maintenance and retirement of hardware. Its next step will be to integrate the new hardware devices with the council's cloud and on-premise infrastructure.
Kent has used the device upgrade to increase access management with the Microsoft Entra ID application, as well as modernisations to the virtual private network (VPN) and database configuration.
