Charter Contracting Company

Company

Charter Contracting Company

Industry

Civil and environmental construction

Our Roles

Cloud Migration
Citrix Remote Access
Microsoft 365 Security Hardening

About Client

Charter specializes in complex environmental and civil construction projects throughout the Northeast region.

Founded in 1997, Charter has developed unique construction capabilities to satisfy our customers’ new and evolving requirements in environmental remediation, heavy civil construction, and soil management construction services. Through careful project execution, they have grown to be a major contractor headquartered in Boston, MA receivingnational recognition from Engineering News Record (ENR) as a Top 200 Environmental Firm.

Problem: Charter had an aging on-premises IT infrastructure that needed a technology refresh.

A hardware failure could cause business disruption, and the data center location was prone to environmental issues such as water leaks. Replacing the hardware would require a significant capital investment and take time to implement.

When COVID-19 hit Charter sent their employees home and temporarily closed the office. They relied on a legacy VPN solution and Microsoft Remote Desktop to connect users to their apps and data. They found it difficult to provide the same experience for remote users that they were used to in the office. This had an impact on productivity as users adjusted to the new working model.

Supporting a remote workforce created additional challenges for Charter around securing their critical IT assets. A formalized security architecture was needed that allowed for secure remote connectivity that did not impact productivity and protected Charter from security threats.

Solutions: Migration strategy where Charter’s physical server environment was virtualized and relocated to a cloud provider

CMC created and executed a migration strategy where Charter’s physical server environment was virtualized and relocated to a cloud provider. This was done with minimal disruption and impact to Charter users.

A new remote access solution was implemented based on Citrix Cloud. Key line-of-business apps and virtual desktops (VDI) were published and deployed to the users. This allowed for seamless remote access to apps and data from any device and from any location. Authentication was single sign on (SSO) enabled to create a streamlined experience for users, and Microsoft365 Business Premium was licensed to enable key features such as Shared Computer Activation, Conditional Access policies, and access to latest version of the Office suite.

The final phase of the IT Modernization project involved increasing Charter’s security posture to minimize the risk and impact of threats. Conditional Access policies were implemented in Azure Active Directory that enforced MFA globally for all users, disabled insecure legacy authentication, and blocked access from high-risk countries. An automated patching strategy was implemented to ensure the IT server environment is patched and up to date with critical security updates. Charter also leveraged advanced firewall capabilities from their cloud provider to further secure their perimeter and provide better visibility and insight into access and login attempts.

Result

With the cloud migration, Charter was able to cost effectively migrate from legacy hardware to a virtual environment that offered flexibility, growth, and access to the latest technologies. Beyond that moving their IT infrastructure to the cloud ensured their servers were in an enterprise data center managed by a staff of IT professionals.

The Citrix Cloud platform allowed Charter to provide a unified access solution for all their apps and data. Users now had a simple access option that worked the same regardless of device or location. This allowed users to quickly get connected to their apps and remain productive even when onsite at project sites.

By leveraging the security features included with Microsoft 365 Business Premium, Charter was able to apply policy-based decisions at login and ensure users could safely access IT resources. Advanced firewall capabilities provided in the cloud also further work to protect Charter’s internal assets from malicious or unauthorized access. Working together, these technologies allowed Charter to safely support a remote and distributed workforce while ensuring their data is protected from unauthorized access

Feature 1

Signal

Feature 2

Decision

Feature 3

Enforcement

Result

Feature 1

Simple Access and
Quickly Get Connected

Feature 2

Reduce Administrative Workload on IT

Feature 3

Simplifies Long-Term Data Retention Strategy

“CMC was able to provide Charter a customized roadmap towards IT
maturity that addressed our goals as a dynamic and growing construction
company. Our business is fast-paced, and we can’t have technology get in
the way. CMC designed a modern IT architecture that meets Charter’s
needs today and moving forward.”

Matt Brown, Director of Operations

VP, Chief Information Officer

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