Helping a 170-year-old bookseller move its archive to the cloud
Utilize helped Maggs Brothers Limited, one of the world's oldest antiquarian booksellers, migrate a decades-old bespoke stock database from ageing on-premise servers to Microsoft Azure, securing an archive of scholarly value while freeing the business to focus on what it does best.
Rare books, six generations of expertise
Maggs Brothers Limited is a London-based antiquarian bookseller specialising in rare first editions and collectible books. Founded by Uriah Maggs in 1853, the company has been run by the same family for six generations and Benjamin Maggs, who leads the business today, is a direct descendant of its founder.
Although Maggs Brothers trades in some of the oldest books in existence, its operations are firmly rooted in the digital world. The company maintains a bespoke stock database that stretches back 50 years, recording books that in some cases represent the only surviving copy of a particular title. This archive carries significant scholarly value alongside its commercial purpose, making data integrity and security a business-critical concern.
The challenge
Legacy infrastructure putting an irreplaceable archive at risk
At the heart of Maggs Brothers’ operations was a bespoke stock database running on a collection of physical servers housed in the basement of their building. As those servers aged, the risks mounted: high energy consumption, the threat of hardware failure, and warranties that were expiring, leaving the business facing pressure to pay to extend them. With no in-house IT resource, the company needed a trusted partner to resolve the situation before it became a crisis.
Ageing hardware and escalating costs
The physical servers running Maggs Brothers’ database were consuming significant energy and approaching the end of their serviceable life. With warranties running out, the business was being put in a position of having to pay escalating costs simply to maintain the status quo, with no guarantee of reliability in return.
No in-house IT capability
As a small business, Maggs Brothers does not have the budget or headcount for a dedicated IT function. This meant that day-to-day technology issues, longer-term planning, and critical infrastructure decisions all had to be handled without specialist internal resource, creating both operational risk and a backlog of smaller tasks that were difficult to prioritise or fund individually.
The solution
A move to Microsoft Azure and an ongoing managed services partnership
Utilize proposed migrating Maggs Brothers’ data from its on-premise servers to Microsoft Azure, providing a secure, resilient, and scalable home for the company’s archive. The migration, completed approximately six months ago, was led by Utilize and represented Benjamin Maggs’ primary project for the year. Since then, Maggs Brothers has moved to Utilize’s ASCEND managed services platform, bringing all IT support and planning under a single, predictable budget.
Cloud migration to Microsoft Azure
Utilize managed the end-to-end process of moving Maggs Brothers’ bespoke stock database from physical servers to Microsoft Azure. The migration resolved the immediate risks around hardware failure and warranty costs, while giving the business the security of cloud-based storage and backup, ensuring that an archive of significant scholarly and commercial value is properly protected and preserved.
Utilize ASCEND managed services platform
Following the migration, Maggs Brothers joined Utilize’s ASCEND services platform, which consolidates IT support, project management, and ongoing improvements under one inclusive budget. This gives the business access to responsive support when issues arise, as well as a structured way to plan and deliver longer-term technology improvements, without the need to seek individual budget approval for each piece of work.
Results
Legacy infrastructure retired
Ageing physical servers were decommissioned and replaced with a secure, cloud-based environment on Microsoft Azure, eliminating the risks of hardware failure and escalating warranty costs.
A 50-year archive secured and backed up
The company’s bespoke stock database, including records that may represent the only known copy of certain titles, is now stored and backed up in the cloud, protecting its long-term scholarly and commercial value.
New website launched
The move to Azure provided the stable, secure foundation needed to launch a new company website, with the cloud migration enabling that next phase of digital development.
Predictable IT costs and no backlog of deferred work
Under the ASCEND platform, smaller tasks no longer accumulate into a deferred backlog. Everything is covered under one budget, removing the need to seek approval for individual items and giving the team peace of mind.
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