P2P

57 I L T A N E T . O R G T he move to the cloud is another trend accelerated by the pandemic. Fortunately, many firms were well positioned to support the sudden need to work from home, with notebooks already deployed and remote access available. Even with firms' desires to get people back in the office, hybrid operations aren't going anywhere Historically, the legal industry has always been hybrid, with attorneys operating from various locations based on the requirements of specific matters. However, the pandemic forced the issue to the forefront and changed the perspective from "work from anywhere" to "work the same from anywhere." When strategizing on your firm's trajectory in moving to the cloud and supporting hybrid operations, it's helpful to break it down into two primary areas: • Overall IT infrastructure, which is often first consolidated, and then potentially moved to the cloud. • Specific applications, which can be cloud-hosted or transitioned to true software-as-a-service (SaaS) models. We'll initially focus on the broad progression in IT infrastructure to provide context for the subsequent discussion on transitioning specific applications to the cloud. IT Infrastructure Three critical aspects of IT infrastructure greatly influence hybrid operations: • Transition from desktop computers to notebooks • Consolidation of IT infrastructure from individual offices into data centers • Increasing bandwidth making location irrelevant for accessing resources In one-office firms, the conversation is straightforward: are you running your IT infrastructure on-premises or using third party provider to host it in the cloud? The scenario becomes more complex for multi-office firms. They generally follow a similar path: The starting point (Stage 1) replicates the scenario of a single-office firm across multiple locations, connected with limited bandwidth. Here, users primarily work on desktops, and applications run on local servers. Firms typically move to a more sophisticated second stage with several changes: • Deployment of notebooks to many users, particularly attorneys Stage 1 - Each office with their own IT infrastructure and servers; offices connected by limited bandwidth

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