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Community CPA Cuts IT Costs 30% by Replacing Citrix with Azure Virtual Desktop

From serving individuals and small businesses to supporting nonprofit organizations, Community CPA (CCPA) has built a reputation as a reliable accounting and advisory firm focused on accuracy, compliance, and personalized financial guidance. 

As the firm expanded, its existing co-location and Citrix-based infrastructure began to limit scalability, flexibility, and cost efficiency. Community CPA needed a modern, secure, and cloud-driven environment to support seamless operations, enable remote work, and strengthen business continuity while reducing overall IT costs. 

Challenge

As Community CPA grew, its dependence on a co-location setup combined with a Citrix-led environment began to slow down operational efficiency. The infrastructure was not designed for scale, making it increasingly difficult to accommodate evolving business needs without adding complexity and cost. 

At the same time, limited visibility into IT operations and fragmented control over systems made management cumbersome. Security frameworks and access controls require strengthening, especially given the sensitivity of financial data. Additionally, the existing disaster recovery approach lacked the agility needed to ensure quick recovery and uninterrupted service delivery. 

  • Infrastructure not built for scale, leading to operational bottlenecks 
  • Increasing cost pressure due to legacy systems and third-party dependencies 
  • Fragmented IT control and limited visibility across environments 
  • Security and access frameworks needed modernization 
  • Disaster recovery setup lacked speed and resilience 

Solution

To help Community CPA overcome its infrastructure limitations, Cloud 9 Infosystems redesigned the firm’s IT environment with a cloud-first approach—ensuring greater control, security, and flexibility aligned with the needs of a growing accounting practice. 

  • Migration to a Scalable Azure Environment 
    Community CPA transitioned from a location-bound setup to a cloud-based infrastructure, enabling the firm to scale operations without adding complexity or cost. 
  • Modern Virtual Desktop Experience 
    By replacing Citrix with Azure Virtual Desktop, employees gained a consistent, reliable workspace, ensuring seamless access to accounting systems and client data. 
  • Strengthened Security and Access Controls 
    Enhanced identity and access management ensured that sensitive financial information remained protected while maintaining ease of access for authorized users. 
  • Improved Business Continuity and Recovery 
    A more robust disaster recovery framework was established, enabling Community CPA to maintain service continuity and recover faster from disruptions. 
  • Centralized IT Management 
    The new environment provided better visibility and control, simplifying system monitoring and reducing administrative burden for internal teams. 
  • Enabled Flexible Work Environment 
    Teams could securely access applications and data from any location, enabling a more agile, responsive way of working. 
  • Reduced Operational Overhead 
    With reduced reliance on manual infrastructure management, Community CPA’s team could shift its focus to delivering higher-value financial and advisory services. 

Results

The implementation of Azure Virtual Desktop enabled Community CPA to transition from a legacy IT environment to a modern, cloud-first workspace, and delivering measurable improvements in efficiency, control, and resilience: 

  • Reduced IT infrastructure costs (TCO) by 30%, by transitioning from a co-location and Citrix-based setup to a scalable Azure environment 
  • Modernized digital workspace with Azure Virtual Desktop, improving overall scalability and performance 
  • Faster provisioning of users and applications, enabling quicker onboarding and improved IT responsiveness 
  • Enhanced visibility and centralized management, allowing better monitoring, governance, and operational control 
  • Improved remote work capabilities, increasing secure remote access adoption by 45%, enabling seamless access from any location or device 
  • Strengthened long-term IT strategy, aligning infrastructure with a cloud-first model to support future growth 

 

The transformation enabled Community CPA to operate with greater agility and control, while building a resilient and scalable foundation for continued digital evolution. 

Company

Size: 11 to 50 employees
Location: Des Moines, IA 

Industry

Financial services

Practice Areas

  • Application Innovation
  • Cloud Infrastructure and Management
  • Microsoft 365 
  • Security and Compliance
  • Cloud Migration

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