International law firm Trowers & Hamlins has transformed its global network infrastructure, successfully eliminating single points of failure and enabling critical security updates to be carried out without resulting in service outages. This significant overhaul, executed by ANSecurity, coincided with the firm reducing its main office and datacentre footprint, alongside the strategic relocation of core datacentre services to a dedicated co-location facility.
With over 170 partners and more than 1,000 employees located across the UK, Middle East and Asia, Trowers & Hamlins sought to streamline its infrastructure, improve resilience, and enhance capacity for remote workers, branch offices, and cloud-connected services during the move. The previous architecture of the firm consisted of two separate datacentre networks with limited interconnectivity. Aiming to replace this setup, the law firm planned a single logical datacentre architecture to facilitate workload mobility and strengthen disaster recovery protocols. ANSecurity took charge of the design and implementation, enhancing resilience across office networks, remote user access, core security services, and datacentre networking.
Addressed planned downtime
The project also addressed issues with planned downtime that previously accompanied infrastructure maintenance, during which routine security updates necessitated outages within approved maintenance windows.
The updated architecture permits these critical updates to proceed without interrupting services, allowing the IT team to act swiftly on emerging vulnerabilities. Anthony Mann, Infrastructure Manager at Trowers & Hamlins, highlighted the importance of resilience and availability, noting, "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
The project has notably increased network capacity and simplified infrastructure management
The relocation of datacentre services provided an opportunity to redesign the underlying architecture instead of replicating the previous setup.
Collaborating with ANSecurity, the firm adopted a phased transformation approach, which validated the new environment prior to the physical move, thereby reducing migration risk. ANSecurity divided the programme into two phases, deploying and validating the new architecture first before executing the physical move of infrastructure to the new co-location facility. This phased approach minimized business disruption during the migration, and any minor issues encountered were swiftly resolved.
Supporting future growth
The project has notably increased network capacity and simplified infrastructure management, thanks to centralised configuration, reduced duplication, and standardised deployments across branch offices. The revamped environment significantly boosts remote access service availability and enhances branch connectivity, thereby increasing the infrastructure’s capacity to accommodate future growth.
Over 750 users currently access services remotely via Trowers & Hamlins’ application delivery platform. This initiative is the latest chapter in a seven-year collaboration between Trowers & Hamlins and ANSecurity, with the latter previously assisting with the firm's global SD-WAN rollout to modernise connectivity across its international offices.
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 programme 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 centralised configuration, reduced duplication and standardised 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.
