Wealth of experience when it comes to understanding the migration process.

The RSPCA operates in England and Wales in a wide variety of locations including 5 hospitals, 16 animal centres, 4 wildlife centres, 5 regional offices, a central support centre near Horsham in West Sussex and approximately 100 homeworkers plus of course 500 uniformed Inspectors. A total of 1500 staff are employed by the National Society.

Business information manager Alan Moynihan says the RSPCA’s migration to Google Apps was triggered by circumstances. “There was a lot of pressure to be more flexible and cost efficient. We found our legacy system was forcing us to say “no”, whereas we want to be saying “yes”, and our technical strategy is focused on using cloud-based solutions.
“It was a one in 15-year opportunity to look at what the business needed beyond email and focus was on solutions that could help the RSPCA take a big step forward. The Google solution allowed our systems to flex and suit the needs of the organisation. It’s fulfilled our short-term needs, and it’s also fully scalable.”

Alan added that another advantage of Google Apps is its cost model. “Instead of a spikey, capital-intensive overhaul every seven years, the costs are predictable – they depend on how many user accounts or users you have.”
What’s more, he says, there are no longer any barriers to sharing. “You can now share rather than send: collaboration is something we promote, and it’s a powerful feature. People can now work on one document together, and they’re starting to recognise how powerful Google Apps is.”

The switch to Google was supported by their partner, Cloud Technology Solutions (CTS). Training was given to super users, and the organisation also invested in an e-learning package that employees could follow in “bite-sized” chunks as needed. The CTS migration tool was used to ensure mail, calendar and contacts data was successfully migrated into Google apps.
The RSPCA has c150 people using BlackBerry devices, which will eventually be replaced by smartphones that allow them to use Google applications on the go, “Mobile, flexible access is key.”

“This is just the beginning though”, says Wendy Thorley, Head of Information, Systems and Support. “Although the project was focussed on replacing our legacy system, there is much much more that can now be looked at afresh. The exploitation begins now. The opportunities to assist the whole Society to collaborate, communicate to achieve ever higher levels of efficiency and effectiveness delivering animal welfare are enormous”.

Churchill China is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of high quality ceramic tableware, and has a long history of bringing the highest quality products to the hospitality industry. Based in the heart of the Potteries since 1795 as one of its constituent companies, Sampson Bridgwood, Churchill has progressively developed, building a strong reputation as an innovative and reliable supplier of quality tabletop products.

Today, using a blend of rich historical experience and a willingness to embrace the latest technological advancements, the Churchill brand has solid global recognition and a strong manufacturing reputation. Churchill products are used in hospitality establishments in over 70 countries worldwide, achieved through a 508 strong global distributor network.

The challenge

Churchill’s IT infrastructure is highly available with a current up-time of 99.99% for the main systems and e-mail. This is achieved via a combination of virtualisation and expensive SAN replication technologies. Like any organisation in the current economic climate, the company was looking to reduce costs and also improve the software experience delivered to their staff.

Coupled with this factor, a new CRM system was implemented to match their complex sales process and better manage customers with more formalised processes and procedures. Churchill chose Sugar CRM, an open sourced, Web-based solution. As with all CRM systems there is always a difficulty with the integration of the e-mail platform due to the multitude of vendors and versions available. So, being a Web-based application it was decided that the company wanted the same portability for their e-mail also as this would provide a scalable and highly resilient platform.

The combination of the issues faced meant that Churchill needed to find another e-mail platform that aligned itself with the overall strategy of reduction in cost, maintaining the reliability already being delivered and improving the user experience.

The solution

Churchill had been using Lotus Notes 8.5 for a number of years but it consumed a lot of resource and though the server was very reliable they suffered performance issues with the client that used up valuable support time with their staff. As a result having looked at a number of alternatives it was decided to go with Google Apps for business as Alistair Henderson, IT Manager, explained.

“The chosen solution had to fulfil three criteria: highly reliable; highly usable and affordable. In reality the operating expenses could not increase and this was why we chose Google Apps for Business after reviewing all the options open to us. We have nearly 200 people spread across the globe so we needed an e-mail system that was readily available anywhere and Google Apps easily met this criteria.”

Cloud Technology Solutions (CTS) were recommended by Google and provided CloudMigrator. This is the world’s leading multi-platform migration tool, trusted by hundreds of organisations to move millions of messages, appointments and contacts to the cloud. It enables the migration of an entire source messaging system to Google Apps and supports many different platforms including Lotus Notes.

“We used CloudMigrator to transfer around 250 GB of data to the Cloud,” said Alistair. “Although there were a few small difficulties, there was nothing that CTS could not handle. Since then we have continued our relationship with CTS for additional licensing purchases and renewals. They are also helping us to understand more about the potential of the product going forward as Google delivers increased functionality.”

The capabilities

“Now, with the solution in place the benefits of Google Apps for Business are too numerous to list, but reliability, scalability and usability probably sums it up,” said Alistair. “Imagine just sitting back and letting someone else take the strain. Some people who read this are maybe in the fortunate position that they have someone to look after the infrastructure and e-mail systems for them. For those of you, like myself, who have to look after the nuts and bolts of the system, then outsourcing the e-mail headache means there is more time to focus on new technologies or business improvement projects.”

Alistair concluded, “One of the other benefits is that you can be reading a document that was never e-mailed to anyone. Was authored on two different devices, all whilst sitting on the slow train to Milton Keynes, and finally finished with a little collaboration from CTS. Google is more than e-mail, when used correctly it can bring people and technology together to solve real business issues.”

“I have had the honour of presenting at a Google road show with CTS which I think speaks for itself. They are professional but also distinguish themselves in that they appear to care and help either with extremely quick answers to technical questions or are on hand to give advice on the best way to achieve your desired results.”

The group, which manages more than 70 hotels in over 30 countries, traditionally used Novell GroupWise hosted from its head office in Geneva, but increasing operations costs and a corporate five-year plan aimed at portfolio growth and increased financial and operational performance prompted a move to the cloud.

“As part of Kempinski’s ongoing five-year strategy, which we defined in 2010, we are focused on reducing the overall cost of ownership and cost of administration to the hotels,” said Jeremy Ward, Senior Vice President for IT at the group.

“Moving our email platform to a cloud-based solution removes the requirement for the hotels to administer the underlying infrastructure, freeing them to focus on driving efficiencies out of the application itself.”

After considering cloud email platforms from Microsoft and Lotus, Kempinski chose Google Apps, “the most mature and widely available of the solutions we considered”, said Alexander Gundlak, Kempinski’s Director of Collaboration and Web Services.

“It was the logical choice, bearing in mind our geographical spread,” he added.

The migration, which began with a pilot in Geneva in 2010 followed by roll-out in 2011, was completed on target this summer. It managed by Manchester-based Cloud Technology Solutions. The Google Apps Premier Enterprise partner transferred existing messages, appointments and contacts from Novell GroupWise to Google Apps using its the CloudMigrator multi-platform migration suite.

Read more of the story at http://www.cio.co.uk

City of Saint Louis Mayor, Francis G. Slay, wrote a letter to city employees about the switch to Google Apps.

Kara Bowlin, press secretary for the mayor tweeted recently:

City Employees will be using Gmail starting monday. Hooray! No more outdated email system! We’ll be in the cloud!

The new system will provide email, contacts and calendar services using Google’s Cloud software. The city moved from its previous GroupWise, which cost the city $250,000 a year.

We are confident it will be an investment in governmental efficiency. The Google representatives have said that our city’s transition to Google is one of the smoothest they’ve seen.

All emails with the old domain address (@stlouiscity.com) will be rerouted to the new address (@stlouis-mo-gov). Worker’s contacts and calendar appointments will also transition to Google’s platform.

Robbyn Wahby, architect of the change, expects that Google will solve years of technology headaches.

A couple of times a week my GroupWise (email) crashes. It’s just old and archaic

Now, city workers will be able to easily access email and documents on laptops, desktops and personal devices. Efficiency and productivity will increase, she said.

Emails will be archived for 10 years automatically. Wahby said:

Everything sent and received, 25 gigabytes for every user. There will be no running out of space

The hope, Wahby said, is that other city agencies – the Water Division, the Police Department, etc. – will join the system soon.

RMIT chose Cloud Technology Solutions to help move 18,000 accounts over to Google Apps for Education. This is the third release of major project for the University which is moving all staff and students to Google Apps with as little disruption as possible. RMIT will be using our world renowned CloudMigrator to move staff accounts. Some of the technical support team will be flying over to Melbourne this week to kick start this phase. Everyone here at Cloud Technology Solutions are delighted to be working with such a prestigious institution and are looking forward to expanding our customer base further throughout the globe

Using Cloud Technology Solutions for GroupWise to G-Mail Transition. One year ago, Fruitport Community Schools knew the transition from a Novell NetWare environment to a Windows networking environment was inevitable. One of the major issues we were confronted with was “What are we going to do with our e-mail system?” We had been using GroupWise since 1996 and knew we would need to transition to a different e-mail system as a result of the transition to Windows. After much initial research and testing by the technology department, it was decided that Google’s G-Mail was our best solution. Not only did it meet our current district needs, it is designed to take us into the future. It also helped that Google Apps for Education is a free product and in the difficult budget times we are having in Michigan, it also made financial sense.

When that decision was complete, the next logical step was to determine whether or not to move the users existing e-mail, folders, lists, etc. that had been created in GroupWise. After much discussion, we decided that given the amount of time we had been utilizing GroupWise, this was an essential part of the transition and would give our users the best experience possible. The tricky part was to figure out how to accomplish this monumental task. We again did much research trying to determine if it was feasible to move our 415 users manually or if we needed assistance. While it would be possible to move accounts manually, the amount of time and effort required for this task rendered that choice cost prohibitive. We next explored the available software products and tested a few to see which one would best fit our needs. We evaluated three, but determined that the software from Cloud Technology Solutions was the absolute best product on the market. During the testing phase, we found the other programs had issues such as not moving all the mail and not bringing across the folders and converting them to labels. We also found their reporting tools were not very beneficial. When using the Cloud Migrator tool, we were amazed at the ease of the migration process.

We were provided comprehensive reports for each account that included information such as:

• Total number of migrations
• Migration duration
• The number of successful email, calendar, contact and group exports/imports
• The number of failed email, calendar, contact and group exports/imports
• The size of the export and imports

It also went into specifics for each account that was migrated, so we were able to get a big
picture view of the migration as well as a specific view if should there be any issues. To highlight further how well this program works, we were able to migrate 415 people from GroupWise to G-Mail with a 100% success rate. I highly recommend this company and their software to anyone who is contemplating an e-mail migration. It made our transition easy.

With 140 company mail boxes Faber and Faber was operating with a dated version of Microsoft Exchange that had become restrictive to their needs. Looking initially to upgrade their original software they quickly realised it would prove too costly, and the requirement to upgrade would present itself again in due course. Faber and Faber needed a mail server that would support user communication and collaboration. They were looking for an alternative I.T. solution to reduce resource requirements and improve efficiencies. Most importantly they needed to migrate with minimal disruption to the working day, whilst simultaneously revolutionising the way they operated.

After considering various tools they settled on Cloud Technology Solutions Cloud Migrator which would successfully migrate them from their existing on premise applications to Google Apps. Cloud Technology Solutions was able to adapt the solution to meet the requirements of Faber and Faber. One of the most attractive parts of the migration is the ease of deployment – they didn’t need to own, manage, or deploy any software. Performing the migration remotely, Cloud Technology Solutions successfully and swiftly migrated 140 mailboxes to Google Apps for business in a matter of weeks.

With Faber’s new system employees are able to directly log in to their accounts from any device at any time. This allows them to access to all of their emails and calender appointments. Moving forwards Faber and Faber are now looking towards collaboration with the aid of documents and Sites. Remote access takes away the usual restrictions of working in the office 9 to 5 giving Faber and Faber the flexibility they need to run effective, smooth and fruitful operations.

The move to Google Apps for Business dramatically reduced Faber’s I.T costs. An upgrade of Microsoft Exchange along with the costs of running the technology would cost in excess of £30K. A single Google mailbox costs approximately 20% of a Microsoft Exchange License. Google Apps is constantly updating and evolving under the surface and so incurs no add on costs or annual stings. Faber and Faber has become a more productive company with better communication and collaboration, continuing to embrace this technological revolution.

Last year Norbulk saw an opportunity to revolutionise their operations on land too. With over 100 staff based in their Glasgow office and a further 150 across the world, better communication throughout the company was essential and proving difficult with a legacy Novell GroupWise system. Prior to switching to Google Apps Norbulk were experiencing niggling downtime of servers, occupying a noticeable amount of time and IT resources. Haakon Karlsen, Ship Manager, described this as the ‘tipping point’ and the assurance of more secure and efficient computing with the cloud proved the wise option.

After exploring many avenues Norbulk decided Google Apps for Business would fit best within their company. Acting on Google’s recommendation, Norbulk chose Cloud Technology Solutions to help move their IT systems into the cloud. Cloud Technology Solutions helped plan a strategy for Norbulk Shipping starting with a pilot scheme in the U.K Office. They ran their pilot through various levels of the company for two months. After getting great feedback they rolled out Google Apps for Business throughout the rest of the company. With the use of Cloud Technology Solution’s CloudMigrator, Norbulk Shipping were able to move email, calendars, contacts and appointments from their old mail server to their new cloud based environment.

During and after the migration, our technical support team went to Glasgow to help train the staff with the new software. Stuart Cummings, our deployment specialist, worked one-on-one with a selection of staff, allowing the training to be passed on internally through the company. Our training style at Cloud Technology Solutions has proved successful, working with staff hands on, and showing new users how they can work more efficiently. We bring in real world examples as much as possible, veering away from simply instructing staff how to use it. Haakon Karlsen, Ship Manager, commented on their training with Cloud Technology Solutions

The training with Cloud Technology Solutions was great. The training team were often around during the migration to help users and when they weren’t there they were always available online. The success of the pilot and the training they received meant the staff on the pilot scheme could then go on to do one on one training with new users.

Google Apps for Business was well received by staff. One of the features that Norbulk Shipping greatly benefited from was Google Docs. The collaborative nature of Google Docs allows people to access and work on a document simultaneously at any time. With remote access staff are able to work on the go accessing their data on any device by simply logging in.

Norbulk Shippings’ migration was a great success due to the planning and preparation. Haakon Karlson speaks enthusiastically about moving to the cloud:-

When moving to the cloud you really should research all the services that are out there. Looking at cost comparisons alone there are great savings to be made in a relatively short amount of time. It’s important to look at how it will effect your functionality. Your success depends on how well you do your planning, strategy and implementation. We found an extended pilot including members right up to the top was useful to ensure Google Apps for Business would work throughout the whole company. On the whole the staff reacted positively to the move and now it’s plain sailing!

Approximately 22,000 employees will make the move to Google Apps. The state of Utah plan to use Google Apps for emails, calendar and collaboration tools such as Google docs and video chat. In 2010 they saw an opportunity to dramatically cut costs and improves communications through the Google offering. With Google Apps for Government workers ‘on the go’ can have access to their mail, calendar etc through a unique log in. With help from Tempus Nova the State of Utah hopes to have completed the full migration by the end of year 2012.

Both of these large scale migrations were made possible with the use of our CloudMigrator, the world’s leading migration tool. We’re proud of the resilience that this has demonstrated and as our proven track record continues to grow it’s exciting to be a key part of such big projects.

The US state governments are moving to the cloud at a high pace and we’re looking forward to the U.K following suit in 2012.