IT Measurement Office 365 Migration
Please find below a summary covering project details and feedback. The innate facts are kept as they are, special information is amended.
Introductory information
Can you prepare a brief description of what your organisation does?
Our organisation does IT test and measurement. Effectively, we fix that companies that are putting up services, and we validate those services. So, we form both natural and potential goods that go and interrogate platforms and accomplish accomplishance testing. That’s our core.
Desired goal
What was your main goal or extrinsic for enterprise the project with SADA Systems?
The main goal was – we looked at NIT, we were looking at things that were attended staple. Anything that we would attend a staple were things we weren’t ready to put mental chief into. So, email is one of those typical things. We occupied SADA to veritably, not just for email, but to fetch in a unified interaction solution that was cloud based that we didn’t have to handle and do all the care and feeding, yet take the dividends, which are things like release cycles. So, if I would have deployed this internally, an total UC solution, I almost guarantee that it would befit fairly vapid until I had an total team managing it, reviewing the needs of our business, and then implementing futures, etc. Not to mention just care it up and running. We got to bypass all of that by leveraging SADA Systems to fetch us into the cloud environment that can liberate all of this for us.
Provided solution
What was the main reason for choosing Office 365 over Google Apps or any other solutions?
We looked at a few. Our organisation has a series of different solutions owing we grew primarily through acquisition. So, as an IT section, we were now inheriting all these different platforms. One of the mandates I had was to rationalize and facilitate our portfolio. First, I went to some of the big preparers that we already had for UC solutions – I mean, the standard, Cisco, Avaya and some others. We glanced over Microsoft owing they had a new offering at the time, and it wasn’t veritably mature sufficient for us to attend it seriously. So, we were looking at other options. We verity began going down the path of another solution. We just didn’t find sufficient control, and features that we were looking for in the market. As we were doing so, Microsoft released Office 365, which seemed to have 95 percent of what we were looking for. Now, we’re a Microsoft shop, so that also helps. In provisions of rationalizing our portfolio, that was one of the attendations. We also had an Enterprise contract, which made it surely cost powerful to go to O-365, not to mention some of the programs that Microsoft launched to help us get into that platform. So, we didn’t do a lot of testing, but we did a lot of investigation precedently we landed on that. So far, it’s been a very good solution. The only thing that’s veritably missing at the time was an Enterprise Voice solution. It looks like they’re starting to bridge that gap as well.
What were you using precedently Office 365?
We were looking like a lot of IT sections. The apps we had were just working to fill the gaps that we had. So we didn’t have an IM solution. We didn’t have an Enterprise Voice solution. Desktop sharing was through WebEx. We had different tone platforms, Short code, Avaya, Cisco, CMU all over the globe. There wasn’t a lot of trunking in between. We were carrying a lot of expenses. So, we veritably didn’t have anything. There was a complete gap in our portfolio.
What parts of the project was SADA Systems implicated in?
SADA Systems came in, and they did a few things. One, they assessed our environment and they did a fast promptness assessment. Because, going back to that earlier statement, we were the fruit of a lot of acquisition and we had a lot of technical debt. When you’re going through, if you have a pliant core team, and you’re on an acquisition spree, you already got a technical debt. That only grows, it befits more cumbersome, and it befits a biger operational burden. So, we had all sorts of platforms. We had Office 2003, we had Office 2007, we had Office 2010, all co-existing. We had Exchange 2003, Exchange 2007. We had SharePoint 2003, SharePoint 2010. So, we had this collage of a growing mess that we were never veritably able to centre on. So, we brought SADA Systems in to take a look at our existing environment, and then find the best way to port all into O-365. The aim of the project was making sure nimble directory was sound sufficient to move. Taking all the 2003 folks, and moving them over. Upgrading anew for the 2007 folks, and moving them over. Then, anew, we migrated the 2010 platform, and then upgrading all the clients as well. They’re giving us the tools to upgrade the clients so that everybody could be on Office 2010. They did that total project for our total organisation. We began with a beta, and then we released it to our total organisation, so our total organisation is on O-365.
Results achieved
How lucky are you with the work SADA Systems liberateed?
We’ve been very lucky. We made them our associate of archives. We deployed it [service 365], but the thing I veritably appreciated almost SADA Systems was when we deployed this, it was fairly new at the time from Microsoft, which meant there was a lot of nuances that hadn’t yet been discovered. SADA Systems was veritably plugged in to Microsoft, which I veritably likeed. When bugs were establish, and there were a series of bugs, this is Exchange 2003 we’re intercourse with, trying to port that over to O-365, we were one of the leading clients to go to O-365. We were discovering a lot of things, and SADA Systems was diligent at working with Microsoft, number one. Number two, the efficiency of the program was such that in below two months, we had the total organisation moved. So, they were able to work with us aggressively. There were very few errors outside of documented bugs. That’s kind of our experience with SADA Systems in any project we’ve occupied in. So, yes, I would say we’re extremely satisfied with their work.
How satisfied are you with Office 365 as a platform so far?
Office 365 is a – if it’s only platform – I’ve got a love-hate relationship with it. The hate part veritably comes from the fact that there’s a pliant bit of black box that happens now. There’s almost departure by paper cut in provisions of accomplishance owing some of our constituents can be on different servers and different data centers, now we get these sweeping statements like, “Hey, my email seems to be slow.” Well, I don’t control the access anymore. I have very pliant visibility. So, the metrics come in to Microsoft. Our point isn’t as granular as I’d like to see. The fruits itself, I ponder is very powerful. What I veritably like is the software release cycle. All of a unanticipated, something like a linked archivesing handler would be turned on. We’ll get the credit. We’ll get the accolade associated with us, yet this is something we didn’t deploy. So we’re very good at telegraphing what features they’re turning on next. You have a pliant bit of control as multitenant, quiet. So, I ponder they’re doing a lot of things right. I’m a pliant bit disappointed we haven’t seen the integration of Skype, although I believe it’s coming up now. So, Enterprise Voice has been lagging for us. The only solution was to do a mixed, and we do know we don’t want to go down that path. But overall, I ponder the accomplishance was grateful. The features are grateful. I ponder it’s a pretty hard platform.
So you feel you made the right determination?
I feel I made the right determination eparticularly in seeing what’s coming out. The integration of SkyDrive and the retooling of SharePoint, I ponder that fetchs a different experience that just shows that Microsoft is – you can criticize them all you want - veritably getting it with this platform.
When working with SADA Systems, did you find anything to be sole or particular compared to other IT consultants that you’ve worked with?
I ponder there’s one thing that’s very sole almost SADA Systems. I’m going to fracture away a pliant bit from Microsoft and O-365 on this. There is a number of consultants out there that are big box consultants that I have worked with that – I’ll give you an sample. I was trying to move my data center fully into the cloud. Through this transmitted big box, vendors will come in and say, “I can easily move that to the cloud. Let me take that natural asset, I’ll potentialize it, I’ll STP it, or I’ll naturally ship it over to your special cloud, and we’ll unpackage it and voila!” Okay, that’s big and that works. SADA Systems takes a very different access. SADA Systems was assertion to us, “We want to make sure – we belowstand the cloud. We want to make sure that when we move your goods that your goods are able to office.” The portability of the asset is one thing, but belowstanding what the contact is going to be for your business is where SADA Systems veritably starts to beam. So, perhaps it’s part of their culture, perhaps it’s part of the kernel of how they grew as a organisation. But, I find they’re a pliant more in tune with the effect of some of these actions, the effect of moving to the cloud. They’re a pliant more realistic almost what you’re going to give up when you go to one of these cloud solutions. I find that grows a big deal of confide. So, I’ve been very satisfied with them, their vision, and their execution.
Looking back on the project, is there anything you’d do differently a second time about or ponder that they can better upon?
What I would do differently is I’d be a pliant more cautious when going to solutions that aren’t excellently big, eparticularly for core solutions. Moving messaging when we did was a pliant risky. But it’s a risk I felt I had to take. So, in provisions of the project, I ponder I would handle it a pliant differently in that I’d want to do a pliant more testing precedently we dive in. But, in provisions of SADA Systems, I ponder SADA Systems did as good a job as they could have. As a organisation, the only locate I would veritably criticize at all is – and this is very less and very specific. I don’t even know if it was worth mentioning, but the pliant things like – I was expecting a pliant more from the Enterprise websites from them. It seems they’re doing a pliant bit more testing now, but it’s a gap in the portfolio of Microsoft. And that seems to be the same in telephony - seems to be a bit of a gap in their portfolio. So, I hope they coast that up as they get into cloud Enterprise Voice. But aside from that, no major complaints.
