Powering Digital Growth — FirstFound’s Cloud Journey with Greystone

FirstFound, a digital marketing agency with offices in Manchester and Dublin, supports over 3,000 clients with services including SEO, PPC, website design and hosting. With a reputation for delivering results driven digital solutions, FirstFound has always understood the value of robust technology infrastructure. Since 2004, they’ve trusted Greystone as their strategic IT partner to help them stay competitive and agile in a fast-moving industry.

Two Decades of Support

As FirstFound grew, so did the complexity of their IT needs. By late 2023, the agency was running on an ageing VMware environment hosted on physical servers that were nearing end-of-life. Their infrastructure was still largely tied to an on-premises model, which limited scalability, increased maintenance overhead, and presented challenges for remote work.

With the Windows Server 2012 end-of-support deadline approaching and a planned office relocation underway, FirstFound faced a critical question…stay on legacy systems or embrace the cloud?

Seamless Migration to Microsoft Azure

Greystone proposed a full transition to Microsoft Azure, modernising FirstFound’s entire IT environment to meet their current needs and future ambitions. After careful planning, the team embarked on a three month migration project, designed to deliver a secure, scalable and cost effective platform.

Rather than opting for a ‘lift and shift’ approach, Greystone re-architected the environment using Infrastructure as Code principles. Azure Virtual Desktop was deployed to allow secure remote access, while all core business applications including bespoke tools and Microsoft 365 were moved into the cloud.

Key stages included:

• A full audit of systems, user roles, and dependencies
• Design of a cloud native architecture aligned with best practices
• Security hardening using Azure tools like Conditional Access and Defender
• User onboarding and training to ensure a smooth transition

20 Years and Stronger

Significant Cost Savings

By moving to Azure, FirstFound avoided costly hardware refresh cycles and on-site maintenance fees. The new environment reduced the 5-year total cost of ownership by approximately 25%, and early analysis shows ongoing operational savings of 30–35% annually which is money that can now be reinvested in business growth and innovation.

Hybrid Work, Simplified

Employees now access their desktops and applications from anywhere using Azure Virtual Desktop. This not only boosted flexibility and collaboration but improved security by centralising data and enforcing robust access controls.

Enterprise Grade Security

FirstFound’s new setup includes multi-factor authentication, endpoint protection, and automated backups giving them peace of mind that client data is secure and compliant.

Future Ready Infrastructure

By shifting to Azure, FirstFound no longer has to worry about on-site server failures, patch cycles, or infrastructure limitations. Their new cloud environment is agile, scalable, and ready for whatever comes next.

A Strategic Technology Partner

As part of the engagement, FirstFound continues to receive strategic guidance via Greystone’s IT Director as a Service (ITDaaS). This ensures that IT decisions are aligned with business goals, whether it’s budgeting, compliance, or digital innovation.

With over 20 years of experience in managed IT and cloud services, Greystone is more more than an IT Support, we strategically help businesses build smarter IT strategies. For FirstFound, that meant a smooth cloud migration, long term cost savings and a stronger foundation for growth.