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External Id
1171
PD Domain
Platform Management
PD SolutionArea
Microsoft Platform Management
Metalogix and Avanade Help a Major International Mining Company Save $1.25M on Merger, Acquisition &
Content Matrix Expertise Tops Native Tools for SharePoint Migration
Using just the standard tools, we would have been very limited in terms of what we could do. Now we have the latest technology and a clean slate. We couldn’t have done that without Metalogix. For us, [Metalogix] Content Matrix was a clear choice. In keeping up with the latest versions of SharePoint, you’re migrating about every four years, which introduces some risk. It comforts us to know that we can use it again next time..
Kattelo Consulting Selects Content Matrix as the Industry Leader for SharePoint Migrations
Our teams have tried out all the usual products for SharePoint migration, and Metalogix is our top choice. From installation to the actual migration, Metalogix Content Matrix is extremely intuitive. The extensive options, meanwhile, facilitate the more complex migration scenarios. My clients want to complete a project and we know that with Metalogix, it will be completed on time and done correctly. .
Telefónica España slashes AD recovery time with Recovery Manager
Solutions
Thanks to Recovery Manager for Active Directory, if an operational errors results in the deletion of an AD object, we can restore the object in seconds instead of hours..
Quest Greif simplifies and strengthens Active Directory security
With operations in 37 countries, Greif is an industry leader in the manufacturing and distribution of industrial packaging products and accessories.
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Industry
Manufacturing
Challenges
Greif needed to protect its Active Directory and ensure proper granting of permissions for managing Active Directory objects.
We’ve been using Active Roles for more than 10 years. We believe that automation is key in working more efficiently as an organization…. the combination of Change Auditor and Active Roles makes it actually perfect. Change Auditor gives you that extra layer of protection to protect highly sensitive Active Directory groups..
Solutions
Change Auditor and Active Roles
Benefits
- Automated, centralized, consistent permissions management
- Strong protection for important Active Directory groups
- Single-click AD account deprovisioning and restore
- Complete transparency with history logs
Securing Critical IT Systems at a Global Biopharma Leader
With both research development and manufacturing of many pharmaceutical drugs as well as cancer treatment solutions as its focus, this organization selected Quest to strengthen security, compliance, and reliability across its Active Directory environment.
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Industry
Health Sciences
Challenges
To strengthen security, compliance, and reliability across the Active Directory environment.
We find a lot of comfort that when we do encounter issues -because everybody will encounter a major issue, - that [Quest's] support is on call 24x7 to be with us side-by-side in the trenches as we build and recover. Our exercises prove that it is truly an all-in-one solution that brings you back....
Solutions
- GPOADmin
- Change Auditor for Active Directory
- Active Roles
- Recovery Manager for AD DRE
Benefits
- 25-30 minutes recovery vs a week or more
- Strengthen security, compliance, and reliability
- Ensure business continuity
- Streamline administration and reporting
Empowering business operations with a massive IT transformation
AtkinsRéalis partners with Quest to supercharge collaboration and productivity.
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Industry
Professional services -
Website
www.atkinsrealis.com
Challenges
When two large engineering companies merged in 2017, they retained their separate IT environments. A few years later, leadership chose to unite the two divisions under a new brand, AtkinsRéalis. As part of the One Workspace initiative, the IT team needed to consolidate the IT ecosystems to improve collaboration, productivity and business agility.
We were not buying tools; we were buying knowledge. The people from Quest were highly engaged, supportive and knowledgeable, and they had already performed a massive number of large migrations like ours. We saw that they would be able to support us from day one through the entire project..
Solutions
Every vendor responding to the project RFP proposed using Quest solutions. But AtkinsRéalis was looking for more: an experienced and reliable partner. The Quest professional services organization had the experience and commitment needed to complement the AtkinsRéalis team’s knowledge of its business and IT environment. By working together as one team, they were able to deliver on the One Workspace vision in just 24 months.
Benefits
- Consolidated two large Active Directory domains by migrating 14,000 identities and 10,000 devices
- Enhanced cybersecurity by reducing the attack surface across multiple dimensions
- Enabled employee productivity, collaboration and mobility
- Improved business agility and IT efficiency
The Story
An ambitious goal: transforming two parts into one whole
AtkinsRéalis is a world-class engineering services and nuclear organization that connects people, data and technology to transform the world’s infrastructure and energy systems. With 38,000 employees in 400 offices around the world, the company has played a pivotal role in a wide range of projects, from the Dubai Opera to the world’s first carbon-neutral waste treatment plant to many bridges, highways and hospitals.
The company’s roots date back to 1911, and the ensuing century brought a great deal of change, including many mergers and acquisitions. A key development came in 1991, when engineering giants SNC and Lavalin merged to form SNC-Lavalin Group. Additional major M&A deals followed, including the acquisition of WS Atkins in 2017.
In 2023, the company became AtkinsRéalis. However, this change was far more than a simple rebranding — it was a reinvention of the company as a unified entity. “After the 2017 merger, the SNC-Lavalin and Atkins parts of the business were run essentially as two companies, with limited connection and IT integration,” explains Sylvain Cloutier, vice president of service delivery at AtkinsRéalis. “For example, we had two separate email domains, and people from one side of the business were seen as guests in the other, which meant they were not able to effectively share information and collaborate.”
Then, 2019 saw a change in leadership at the company. “Our new CEO established a new mandate: Create a unified entity where everybody can work together as a single company and culture,” says Cloutier. “This vision for the new AtkinsRéalis brand marked the beginning of our One Workspace program — and our journey with Quest.”
A complex set of technical challenges
A core goal of One Workspace was to unify the two separate IT environments. “The first step was to standardize the technology and the experience for everyone,” notes Cloutier. “Using all the same systems and applications was essential to enabling collaboration between all employees, whether they are located in Saudi Arabia or Quebec City. In addition, it would facilitate the mobility of our people as they both travel geographically and move from project to project.”
This goal yielded a complex set of technical requirements across four areas:
- Active Directory (AD) consolidation — Move all users and devices from the SNC Lavalin (SNCL) domain to the Atkins domain.
- Public folder migration — Migrate SNCL public folders to SharePoint Online or shared mailboxes.
- Tenant consolidation — Migrate SNCL Microsoft 365 services to the Atkins M365 tenant.
- SharePoint Online migration — Migrate SNCL SharePoint Online to the Atkins tenant.
An equally important set of human challenges
The AtkinsRéalis team recognized that these technical changes necessarily involved a host of human challenges as well. “As part of the IT consolidation projects, we needed to instill new ways of working,” says Richard Stephens, IT modern workplace director at AtkinsRéalis. “Our users had not necessarily been exposed to applications like Teams, OneDrive and SharePoint. Therefore, we needed to educate them about how to use those workloads effectively. For instance, we needed to explain that instead of emailing spreadsheets back and forth, they can share them in OneDrive.”
AtkinsRéalis was well prepared to address this challenge. “Whenever we undertake a big project that will impact employees, we work hard to help them understand the changes that are coming and learn the new things they need to know,” explains Dalia Potrus, training coordinator at AtkinsRéalis. “In the case of the One Workspace project, we built the Champions Network, a group of people who would help their colleagues effectively adopt the applications that the business was standardizing upon.”
A unified team to create a unified workforce
To bring the One Workspace vision to reality, the team at AtkinsRéalis began by working with a different vendor. However, they were not comfortable with the vendor’s proposed strategy: a big-bang migration. While flipping a switch and moving everything over the space of one weekend is certainly simple, it is impractical for a project of any significant size. Moreover, it can be highly risky.
Instead, AtkinsRéalis preferred a gradual migration in which groups of users and data would be moved in carefully orchestrated waves. Accordingly, they began looking for a third-party partner to help them with their massive transformation. They quickly noticed a commonality amongst the responses to their RFP: Everyone proposed to use Quest tooling for the project.
As a result, the choice came down to the quality of the partnership, rather than the functionality of the toolset. “We were not buying tools; we were buying knowledge,” Cloutier says. “The people from Quest were highly engaged, supportive and knowledgeable, and they had already performed a massive number of large migrations like ours. We saw that they would be able to support us from day one through the entire project: migration, security, management and professional services.”
The secret sauce: Agility, communication and best-in-class solutions
The combined team from AtkinsRéalis and Quest embraced an agile approach. “Instead of trying to establish a complete roadmap for the migration up front, we built the road in front of us as we were driving,” explains Cloutier. “We took an approach of trust in which we would make our best decisions and if they didn’t work, we’d step back and realign. The executives and the employees were supportive because they saw positive results quickly, with noticeable steps in the transformation being completed.”
In particular, the team was able to embrace the company’s name change and immediately present a unified face to the world. “Over the course of a weekend, we rebranded the primary SMTP address of 37,000 accounts, along with tens of thousands of devices and hundreds of corporate applications,” recalls Stephens. “Without the partnership with Quest, that target would've been impossible to achieve.”
As for the Active Directory migration, 14,000 identities were migrated in 97 waves, while 10,000 PCs were moved across 50 waves, all in the space of 24 months. “Because of prior acquisitions and other factors, our Active Directory environments were quite complex,” Stephens notes. “The Quest tooling was extremely helpful because it automated the migrations and eliminated the need to manually enumerate, rationalize and create accounts.”
The true measure of success: happy users
Moreover, the Quest professional services team made the experience seamless for users. “They made sure that we were creating accounts in the right location and that we didn't have any email clashes or similar issues,” Stephens says. “They ensured that the accounts were licensed from day one so they could be hydrated with all the data, and they even performed vital close-out tasks like reclaiming licenses.”
“Plus, the partnership with Quest helped us minimize the tasks that the users had to perform,” adds Potrus. “Thanks to the Quest tools and expertise, everything was packaged, prepared and copied over, so the users needed to do just a few simple steps to complete the migration for themselves.”
Clear and timely communication was crucial to the success of the project. “We tied into about 15 different sources of data and surfaced that information up through a single reporting dashboard, which our teams used to develop our migration waves,” adds Stephens. “Dalia and her team kept everyone information through emails and calendar invites. They also set up Teams calls with SMEs that anyone join if they were experiencing any issues.”
Enhanced cybersecurity and business opportunity through AD modernization
Through the transformation project with Quest, AtkinsRéalis was able to achieve a core goal of strengthening cybersecurity across multiple dimensions. “First of all, we significantly reduced the number of local administrator accounts on endpoints, closing a key avenue for threat actors,” says Stephens. “We also changed our remote access tools, moving from a traditional VPN solution to a much more secure option: a cloud-based Zero Trust network access service. And we changed the underlying technologies for patch delivery and management, further reducing our attack surface area.”
More broadly, the successful IT modernization effort has provided AtkinsRéalis with a solid foundation for seizing opportunities and growing the business. “The project was a phenomenal enabler,” Stephens notes. “Without it, our IT department would have been supporting two separate computing environments with very different maturity levels, and trying to evolve both of them would have been an administrative nightmare. We wouldn't have been able to deliver it with the teams that we've got. For instance, we can now roll out a single Windows 11 configuration across one domain instead of two, using one management platform.”
In short: One team created One Workspace
In the end, AtkinsRéalis credits the unified team with the success of the project. “We were truly one team: The Quest people have the knowledge and tooling to do the migrations, and our people have the knowledge of the business and the environments,” says Cloutier. “Through any challenge, Quest was accountable and wanted to be part of the solution. By working together, we were able to achieve the transformation that AtkinsRéalis needed.”
“I have to say thumbs up to everybody in the team,” adds Stephens. “Their commitment was phenomenal, and the time they put in was invaluable. Even after our Quest account manager could have moved on, he stayed with us, joining weekly calls to ensure that everything was continuing to go well. In fact, Quest executives even got involved at times, jumping on calls when we were having an issue. Quest’s support and expertise made all the difference.”
Improving user productivity and slashing IT workload through Active Directory migration
Law firm consolidates two large AD domains in just six months with Quest solutions and professional services.
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Industry
Law
Challenges
A large international law firm was created through the merger of two law practices, each with its own IT ecosystem. To enable better utilization of IT resources, simplify administration and control costs, the firm needed to consolidate its two Active Directory (AD) domains into a single new domain.
Our AD and Exchange consolidation project was a very positive experience, and we’d be more than happy to engage with Quest in the future..
Solutions
Because of the complexity and critical nature of the project, the firm wanted best-in-class solutions and experienced experts. Using Migrator Pro for Active Directory and Migrator Pro for Exchange, the Quest Professional Services (PSO) team and partner Kraft Kennedy delivered secure and seamless migrations of all 4,000 AD users and 13,000 Exchange mailboxes in just six months
Benefits
- Consolidated two large AD domains into a greenfield domain in just six months
- Minimized business disruptions with a seamless experience for users
- Facilitated user productivity and satisfaction by simplifying business workflows
- Reduced IT team workload, security risks and costs
The Story
Maintaining multiple AD domains impacts productivity, security and costs.
A new law firm was formed through the merger of two large practices, each with its own complex digital ecosystem. Accordingly, immediate priorities for the IT team were to enable all employees of the newborn firm to be able to communicate effectively, and to present a unified presence to the external world. With help from the Quest Professional Services Organization (PSO), they were able to quickly achieve those goals.
Behind the scenes, however, the firm still had two separate Active Directory domains, which gave rise to a host of challenges for the business. “Security was a pretty big headache,” notes the enterprise server architect. “We had to maintain multiple admin accounts in order to give our support teams access to the different domains, which involved managing all their permissions and passwords. And, obviously, support teams would change, and different users would need different access at times. As a result, properly controlling access across the different environments was difficult and time consuming.
“Maintaining two domains also sometimes led to access issues for users, which meant more maintenance overhead for IT teams,” adds the senior server infrastructure manager. “You need a trust in place between the domains, and you have to keep the trust as limited as possible while still making sure users are able to do their job. That can give rise to issues like users not being able to access a resource they need because it’s in the other domain, which the IT team must address promptly. But troubleshooting can be difficult because when an issue arises, you never quite know: Is it the trust that's not quite right or is it something else?”
Consolidating AD domains after a merger demands top tools and expertise.
The law firm recognized that migrating to a single domain was vital to improving user access to important resources, simplifying administration and controlling costs. Accordingly, the IT team began preparing for a huge consolidation project.
First, the IT team merged the two source Azure tenants using On Demand Migration from Quest. Then they turned their attention to the two on-premises AD environments. They determined the best approach was to consolidate the users and mailboxes into a unified greenfield AD domain.
The IT team was already familiar with Quest and impressed with Quest solutions. In addition to using On Demand Migration for the tenant consolidation, they had experience with several other Quest tools. “For example, I had used Spotlight for monitoring SQL Server, and our IT team in the US had used Quest migration solutions for some of their smaller acquisitions,” recalls the senior server infrastructure manager.
For this project, BCLP selected Migrator Pro for Active Directory and Migrator Pro for Exchange. “A comprehensive demo convinced us of the power and flexibility of the tools,” says the senior server infrastructure manager. “And the Quest team’s expertise and willingness to gain a thorough understanding of our environment gave us confidence in partnering with them. We also engaged Quest partner Kraft Kennedy for our EMEA and APAC migrations.”
A true partnership yields impressive results.
Together, the teams were able to migrate the law firm’s 4,000 AD users and 13,000 Exchange mailboxes in just six months. The effort was a true partnership. “Our experience with Quest was very, very positive,” says the enterprise server architect. “Our source environments were quite complex, so there were multiple scripts that needed to be run to make the correct changes on our servers and handle all our various applications. We were able to learn the products and write the runbook for the Professional Services team to follow. Quest PSO got to know our environments inside out and helped tweak the runbook so that the migrations proceeded seamlessly.”
This collaborative approach continued through the migrations. “The lead Quest engineer was very proactive in troubleshooting issues,” adds the enterprise server architect. “He didn't just say, ‘There’s a problem; can you guys fix it?’ It was, ‘We’ve hit an issue here; I’ve done some investigation and here’s what I think might be going on.’ Then we’d discuss it and work together to find the best solution and the best time to fix it.”
Equally important, the migrations were comprehensive and secure. “Together, we were able to move all the source user accounts and mailboxes into the new domain, retaining all their relevant security settings, data, history and so forth,” says the enterprise server architect. “Our legacy environments were mainly Exchange 2016, so we created an Exchange 2016 environment and migrated accounts over to that. We will migrate to Exchange Online further down the line.”
A seamless migration yields positive feedback from both leadership and business users.
The migration was a resounding success in the eyes of both business users and leaders. “The feedback from our users was that it all went pretty seamlessly,” the senior server infrastructure manager reports. “I can count on one hand the number of times we had to roll back any migrations once we’d nailed down the process.”
The team was also able to take advantage of the migration to move users to a different management platform. “As users were migrated to the new domain, they either received a new laptop or had their current laptop wiped and reconfigured,” adds the senior server infrastructure manager. “While that additional step caused them to lose access for a period of time, both the business users and the leadership team were very pleased with how the project went and the benefits it has enabled.”
In a migration partner, flexibility is as important as experience.
While the deep expertise of the Quest PSO staff was invaluable to the success of the project, the law firm was equally impressed by their professionalism and flexibility. “The IT pros from our law firm who were working on the migration also had to keep up with all their regular tasks and were working on multiple projects at the same time, so they could not be fully committed to the project seven hours a day, five days a week,” notes the senior server infrastructure manager. “The Quest PSO team members were very accommodating about the pace we needed to go at.”
“The Quest team was also great about accommodating the time zone difference,” adds the enterprise server architect. “I think the key Quest person was based in India but he worked EMEA hours so he could do the US migrations during their business hours. In fact, all the Quest people were quite willing to work a little bit later to get the job done and maximize the opportunity to share knowledge.”
Extensive preparation and testing are the keys to migration success.
Looking back on the migration, the IT team at the law firm has the following advice to offer to other organizations. “Don’t be scared about migrating accounts and mailboxes,” says the senior server infrastructure manager. “I think some of our senior leadership were worried about all the things that could go wrong in our project and how it might leave everyone at the firm unable to do anything. But with lots of careful preparation and testing, and the right tools and partners, it went quite seamlessly.”
Plus, there was a bonus benefit to the project. “Working on the migrations certainly developed our knowledge of all the systems that we work with to a quite advanced level that wasn't there before,” notes the enterprise server architect. “All of us who worked with the Quest PSO team were able to grow our skills, which was incredibly rewarding for us. In short, our AD and Exchange consolidation project was a very positive experience, and we’d be more than happy to engage with Quest in the future.”
Consultancy completes 20 successful IT migration projects in less than 3 years.
The company realizes its divestment strategy with help from On Demand Migration and a robust partnership with Quest.
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Industry
Professional services
Challenges
After decades of growth through acquisitions, a professional services company decided to focus more tightly on its core mission and identified nearly two dozen sub-businesses to divest. As each deal was inked, it was up to the IT team to migrate out the appropriate data and workloads from Microsoft 365 and Active Directory.
On Demand Migration was the only solution capable of migrating all Microsoft 365 workloads as well as Active Directory. Plus, its functionality was the best of all the tools we evaluated..
Solutions
Using On Demand Migration, the IT team completed the 20 divestment projects in less than 3 years, quickly, accurately and securely. Plus, Quest experts helped them find innovative approaches to tricky requirements, master new product functionality and more.
Benefits
- Enabled 20 IT divestment projects in just 3 years
- Covered all Microsoft 365 workloads plus AD
- Minimized disruption for users with flexible features and quick migrations
- Delivered a true partnership with collaborative problem-solving and process refinement
The Story
New business strategy leads to multiple divestitures.
Over two decades, an international professional services company had grown dramatically through multiple acquisitions. At that point, the board made a strategic decision about the company’s future. “They wanted to get the company back to its roots, to focus on what we’re good at as opposed to spreading ourselves so thin,” explains the divestment project manager. “They identified nearly two dozen businesses within our company that weren’t part of what they wanted the organization to look like. The goal was to return a billion pounds to the bottom line and slim the organization down — all within a five-year timeframe.”
The business development team began to engage with potential buyers, go through the due diligence process and sign contracts. Each new deal meant carving out a variety of business functions for the buyers and then migrating all the associated workloads and data out of the company’s hybrid IT ecosystem.
Only Quest could migrate all Microsoft 365 workloads.
To prepare for the multiple divestment projects coming their way, the IT team began looking for the right migration tool. One key consideration was the breadth of workloads they would need to cover: all Microsoft 365 workloads, including SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams and Exchange, as well as on-premises Active Directory for some projects. In addition, the tool needed to support remote work across multiple countries, since everyone on the team worked from home.
The technical lead had been through multiple IT migration projects before. He briefly considered using native tools but quickly dismissed the idea. “I’d done several SharePoint migrations natively,” he notes. “It was so bloody slow and painful that I knew purchasing a third-party tool was definitely the right choice.”
Accordingly, the team looked at multiple vendors, outlining the costs and trialing the solutions to assess their functionality. One option was a pair of tools that the technical lead had used before, CloudM and ShareGate. And since the team had already used Quest tools for domain migrations with great success, they also made sure to evaluate the Quest solution for tenant migrations, On Demand Migration.
The Quest solution proved superior across multiple dimensions, including workload coverage, quality, flexibility and value. “On Demand Migration was the only solution capable of migrating all Microsoft 365 workloads as well as Active Directory. Plus, its functionality was the best of all the tools we evaluated,” reports the technical lead. “In addition, the cost for the Quest solution was a lot less than purchasing the two other tools we would have needed to get the necessary workload coverage.”
The right partner is just as important as the right tool.
On top of the power and versatility of On Demand Migration, there was another key factor in the professional services company’s decision to go with Quest: confidence. “Purchasing a software solution is like getting a car but not knowing how to drive — even when the tools are great, you need to learn how to drive them,” the technical lead says. “Quest has a very large and very knowledgeable professional services division with critical skills that we didn’t have. They helped us master those skills for ourselves and ensure that we were using On Demand Migration the best way possible.”
20 successful divestments in less than three years.
Partnering with Quest has paid off with one successful migration after another. “We’ve completed 20 divestment projects in less than three years,” reports the project manager. “We have migrated all types of Microsoft 365 workloads, including Teams, Exchange, OneDrive and SharePoint. We have established a very repeatable process. I’m not going to say it’s rinse and repeat, but it’s pretty close to that.”
"We wouldn’t have been able to achieve that aggressive goal without the help of the Quest professional services team,” adds the technical lead. “For example, for a few projects, we needed to migrate a large number of Active Directory objects from our environment, and we had to do it very quickly. We’d done that for one of our early divestments using Microsoft ADMT, and it was extremely time-consuming. We did not have time in this project to do that, nor did we want to. So we spoke to Quest Professional Services and learned that On Demand Migration includes support for Active Directory. With their help, that functionality made the on-prem migration quick and painless."
Quest Professional Services also helps the consultancy’s IT team take full advantage of new features and enhancements to the product. “In the three years that we’ve been using On Demand Migration, it has expanded so much that it’s almost a completely different tool set,” says the technical lead. “But the Quest experts keep us up to date. They are always happy to help us master capabilities that we’re not yet familiar with.
Tip: To reduce impact on users, consider a big-bang approach.
Migration projects are inherently disruptive, but using the right strategies can minimize the impact on users. In performing 20 successful migrations, the consultancy’s IT team developed a process that works well, and they graciously shared their lessons learned.
“My number one piece of advice is this: Do not attempt to move all of your users and data and domains at the same time,” says the technical lead. “Whether the migration involves 20 users or several thousand, we use a two-weekend approach. We first migrate Exchange and OneDrive in parallel, and then we move on to Teams and SharePoint. The very last thing we bring over is the user archives because they can take a long time; people can work without their archives for a few days.”
Tip: Segregating the migration data can be the hardest part of a divestiture.
Another valuable insight from the IT team may seem obvious but is all too often neglected: Get your arms firmly around what data is — and is not — in the scope of the migration. “I recommend identifying your migration data as far in advance as you can,” the project manager advises. “For economies of scale, everyone in the organization tries to use the same systems, such as the same email platform and a single SharePoint environment. Trying to break data out for a divestiture can actually be quite difficult, especially when people have moved from one division to another during their tenure with the organization.”
Indeed, segregating even one portion of the data can be extremely complex and time consuming. “Some of the organizations that we were divesting had been intertwined with us for years,” continues the project manager. “As a result, it was a big job to determine whether the data in our SharePoint sites, Teams, shared mailboxes and so on should remain with us or be transferred to the buyer. For example, to assess a particular SharePoint site, we had to look at its ownership, membership and content — in some cases, getting an accurate assessment required talking to hundreds of people.”
The upshot is clear: “Do not make the mistake of thinking you can complete a Microsoft 365 migration in one weekend,” the project manager says. “For a medium-size project, plan for at least 12 weeks. Once you’ve identified what you’re going to migrate, however, On Demand Migration will get it moved accurately and efficiently.”
Having a true partner can reap benefits you didn’t expect.
As much as the consultancy’s team appreciates the On Demand Migration solution, they also emphasize the enormous value of partnering with the experts at Quest. “In working with Quest, I don’t think we’ve come across a problem that we haven’t resolved by working together,” the project manager states. “We’ve always had access to very senior and very technical resources, even in middle of the night — a 15-minute conversation and the problem just goes away. Having ready access to those experienced experts is invaluable.”
This value is illustrated by a situation that required resolving a sensitive point of contention with a buyer. “We had one client that was very security focused, so they wanted to come into our tenant and claim the data,” recalls the project manager. “We are also security focused, so we said ‘No, we’ll push the data to you.’ That put us at an impasse. We got the techies from Quest involved and quickly found a solution: using a man-in-the-middle approach with a lifeboat tenant. It was brilliant, and it worked. That commitment and that partnership makes all the difference.”
Top real estate agency moves mailboxes and archive data to the cloud with Quest®
Foxtons quickly performed a successful migration to Microsoft 365 with Quest solutions and professional services
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Industry
Real estate -
Website
https://www.foxtons.co.uk/
Challenges
Foxtons supports more clients than any other real estate agency in London. To maintain its competitive edge, Foxtons needed to migrate its on-premises mailboxes and email archive data to Exchange Online quickly and without disrupting business.
The Quest team was very flexible, and the value of their expertise was huge. .
Solutions
Foxtons turned to Quest solutions and professional services to perform a fast and successful migration to Exchange Online.
Benefits
- Completed a successful digital transformation project in just two months
- Migrated 1,868 on-premises Exchange mailboxes to Exchange Online
- Migrated 44TB of Enterprise Vault archive data
- Performed a Microsoft migration quickly and easily, without interrupting business
- Eliminated the administrative overhead of managing legacy email platforms
The Story
About the customer…
Founded in 1981, Foxtons is London’s number one real estate agency brand with more than 60 interconnected offices. Setting the standard in real estate agency, Foxtons is rate “Excellent” on Trustpilot. More homeowners choose Foxtons to sell their property over any other estate agency brand.
Technological innovation fuels Foxtons’ business growth, and their IT staff, led by Group Infrastructure and Security Director, Gurdip Kundi, is always looking to stay ahead of the curve and maintain a high level of service and competitive advantage.
As a large Microsoft house with an on-premises Exchange environment running Veritas Enterprise Vault, Foxtons was planning a digital transformation project. “Our plan was to migrate to Microsoft 365 and use Exchange Online,” said Kundi. But before they could begin their Microsoft 365 migration, Foxtons would need to overcome significant hurdles.
Microsoft 365 migration challenges
One of the biggest obstacles Foxtons faced was how they would migrate their email archives. “We take it upon ourselves to ensure we have all communications as a full trail. We have an in-house legal team, so they use the email archives in our email systems intensively, and it's a very important chain of communication and events for Foxtons. So, it was critical that we maintained the integrity of the data on the email platforms that were moving to the cloud.”
Beyond ensuring data integrity, Kundi was also concerned with how time-consuming the archive migration process would be. “We looked at how long it would take us manually, and the calculations that came back were exorbitant. It would take a massive amount of time. And the reliability slash confidence in getting it done manually was very difficult to pin down and guarantee.” These concerns led Kundi to investigate third-party tools.
Evaluating Microsoft 365 migration solutions
Foxtons quickly whittled down their list of potential migration solution vendors to three. “One was ruled out because it could only do half the job; it wouldn't do the mailbox migration automatically. You'd have to do the second part yourself as a business.” It then came down to two competitors. “From a commercial competitive perspective, Quest was more attractive. We had familiarity and confidence in the Quest brand. Once we spoke to the Quest team and the consultants, we were aware of how much they'd done this before and how mature the products were.”
Choosing email migration solutions from Quest
To overcome their migration challenges, Foxtons relied on Archive Shuttle, Migrator Pro for Exchange and Quest professional services.
“I had one person on my team who'd actually used Archive Shuttle before and was happy with the product and spoke about it with glowing references,” said Kundi. The email archive migration software lived up to its reputation, delivering impressive results.
With Archive Shuttle in place, Kundi and his team quickly and easily migrated 44TB of Enterprise Vault archive data to Exchange Online. Archive Shuttle helped Foxtons avoid end-user impact, maintain full audit trails and move only what was needed to reduce migration time and costs.
Using Migrator Pro empowered the team to achieve another impressive goal: migrating 1,868 on-premises Exchange mailboxes to Exchange Online. This highly automated Exchange migration tool simplified and accelerated the migration process while providing Kundi and his team with full visibility into and control over their migration.
“We didn’t have any issues,” Kundi said. “The Quest products work and migrate all the data successfully, which is fantastic. We were very happy with the project. It went very, very well.” When it comes to Foxtons’ migration success, Kundi gives credit not only to the Quest solutions, but also to the Quest professional services team.
Quest professional services
Working with experienced migration experts helps ensure the success of any digital transformation effort, and that was certainly the case at Foxtons. “The Quest team was very good,” Kundi said. “They were hand in hand with us. We had very good touch points with the project team, and they were very good in communications. I can't speak highly enough about them. They answered any questions we had, any reporting queries we had. They were very quick coming back to us. We asked some complex queries and requested complex reports, but nothing was too much trouble for them.”
Kundi was impressed with the flexibility, knowledge and dedication of the Quest professional services team. “They worked out of hours, in hours and around our schedule. The Quest team was very flexible, and the value of their expertise was huge. I'd say that's what sold it above the software. When I say nothing was too much trouble, we asked them questions outside of the Quest product, around the Office 365 platform and how things are doing, stuff that wouldn't pertain to a normal migration. And again, it wasn't trouble for the team. They brought the right experts in. They gave us advice, coached us, worked with my teams, which was quite nice to see. So, the team was very flexible and adaptable rather than saying, ‘Sorry, you know what? We're only working on the migration here. Can't answer your question.’ They'd come back and say, ‘We'll find the answer.’ They were very dedicated.”
The combination of powerful migration solutions and dedicated experts enabled Foxtons to complete their migration ahead of schedule.
Accelerating the email migration process
Foxtons wanted to get the bulk of their data migrated as quickly as possible, but they hadn’t imagined just how fast their migration would go with Quest. Some competitors had told Kundi they could migrate everything in six months. Quest had conservatively estimated that the migration could be completed in half that time, but the end result was even faster. “It was two months by the time they'd done testing and everything. I was very impressed with the speed.”
The C-suite was impressed as well. “They were very happy that the migration had gone seamlessly in the background with no major issues,” Kundi said. “They were very happy about the advantages of moving to the cloud and using the hybrid environment, and also retiring that legacy infrastructure. That was a big advantage for us. Think about not having to manage an Exchange environment, being able to get rid of the archiving platforms, both from an energy perspective, as it makes us greener, and it cuts out that overhead. So, they were very happy.”
Another successful modernization project complete
“It was definitely a successful project,” Kundi said. “We’re very happy with the Quest products and the professional services team. We're sometimes very difficult to please internally at Foxtons, especially considering the advanced technology platforms and knowledge we have internally, and they wrapped it up really nicely, so it was really good to see that.”
Foxtons is looking forward to growing their use of the Microsoft 365 platform now that they’ve removed the administrative overhead of their legacy email platforms. “That’s been fantastic for the business. We can free up resources that can be better used for other elements internally,” Kundi said. With their migration project behind them, Foxtons is on track to continue setting real estate records, cementing their position as London’s leading real estate agency.