Founded in 1958, Douglas and Gordon is one of the largest and most innovative estate agents in London. With 200 staff working across 19 offices, this client-focused company offers services that extend beyond sales and lettings to property management and refurbishment advice.
In 2011 Douglas and Gordon decided to move its email from an in-house Exhange 2003 cluster environment to the cloud. There were concerns about the cluster’s long-term stability and a fear that, even with a daily backup, failure could result in days of downtime. The sheer quantity of email was another issue. “Mailbox sizes have grown so quickly” notes company Head of IT, Michael Reed, “and to give everyone a massive mailbox is just not practical in-house.” This in turn, was making administration harder. With legal obligations to retain all mail, 80GB brick-level backups were the norm. “Backing up the mail every day for 200 users was becoming a nightmare” Reed explains.