RMIT chose Cloud Technology Solutions to help move 18,000 accounts over to Google Apps for Education. This is the third release of a 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 our technical support team have flown 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.

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 U.S.A government are moving to the cloud at a high pace and we’re looking forward to the U.K following suit in 2012.

The Cloud Migrator is the world’s only multi-platform migration tool, that can now migrate data from Lotus Notes/Domino directly into the Google Apps platform, Google Postini Services and Microsoft Office 365/Exchange 2007/2010. The tool has the power to take on whatever needs our ever expanding customer spectrum has. It is written and supported in-house and supports all Notes platforms from 6.02 upwards. This chameleon like approach to development enables us to successfully cater to all customers, from any sector into the cloud.

The Cloud Migrator 2.0 will move all of your emails, calendars, contacts and appointments from your mail server to your new cloud based environment. The Cloud Migrator Tool is enriched with several new features and improvements. The tool can now move unlimited mailboxes simultaneously resulting in a much faster migration. When using the Cloud Migrator from Cloud Technology Solutions, there is no need to install any software on to your server in effect this makes your migration much more secure with no risk of downtime. As well as allowing better delegation of rights. The tool has superior and extensive reporting for both end users and central administrators.

So why are thousands of organisations choosing to move to Cloud based servers ?

• Dramatically lower costs freeing up some of your I.T budget.
• You can access all your data and cloud application, anytime, anywhere.
• The cost of ownership is much lower as you no longer have to own or maintain servers.
• You can work on the move on any device with an internet connection. Whether that’s your laptop, tablet or smartphone.
• You no longer have to worry about software updates, licensing fees or virus protection this is all done for you.
• You can focus your business on your core goals rather than I.T maintenance.
• Reliability: How reliable is your back up plan if your mail server goes down? With Cloud Applications this is all mapped out.

Why are people choosing to move away from Lotus Notes?

• Managing Lotus Notes servers is proving to be an increasingly costly experience.
• Lotus Notes has proved difficult to use in smaller organisations
• Lotus Notes has diminishing engineers and system administrators available in the marketplace to maintain and develop.
• Lotus Notes has become dated and limiting in comparison to other offerings.

2012 looks to be the year people are going to make the move. This is the year companies should be making steps towards the cloud and we can make it it much easier for you. Read 10 Reasons you should choose Cloud Technology Solutions to move to the cloud.

As a business we aim to make companies move to the cloud turbulence free and help you to adapt once you’re there. As well as dramatically saving costs our tool is guaranteed to safely move your legacy mail to the cloud without losing any of your data.

The Cloud Migrator will move all of your emails, calendars, contacts and appointments over from your original mail server to your new cloud based offering. The Cloud Migrator Tool is constantly being developed to cater to our customers needs the latest version of our tool enables users to migrate from messaging systems such as Microsoft Exchange 2000/2003, Novell/Groupwise 6.5.6, Scalix 11.0 or higher and Microsoft Exchange BPOS/2007/2010. We take companies to many cloud offerings including, Google Apps for Business, Google Postini Services and Microsoft Office 365, Exchange 2007/2010.

Everyone here at Cloud Technology Solutions is very excited to have broken our record and 2012 looks to be the year people are going to make the move. This is the year companies should be making steps towards the cloud and we can make it it much easier for you. Read 10 reasons you should choose Cloud Technology Solutions to move to the cloud.

Usually, the decision-making process that goes into such a choice is shrouded in secrecy. But Berkeley decided to be transparent, and published a matrix explaining the pros and cons of both solutions.
In basic terms, Cal decided it could get Google Apps up and running faster and for less money.
Particularly interesting: to move to Office 365, the university would have had to do a double migration — first to an on-premise version of Exchange, then to the online version in Google Apps. This pokes a hole in Microsoft’s claim that Office 365 is a true cloud-based competitor to Office 365. (This double migration wouldn’t be required in all cases, but it’s NEVER required with Google Apps.)

Here’s where Google had the biggest advantages.

Cheaper support during the migration. Because other universities in the UC system have already migrated to Google Apps, Cal can rely on them to provide some support. With Microsoft, it would have to turn to Microsoft Consulting Services “at a significant cost to the project.”

Faster to set up. Deploying Gmail will take six to ten weeks, and the university will be able to keep some recent changes it made to its email routing system. With Office 365, the university has to move from its current system to an on-premises version of Exchange first. Then, it can move from Exchange to Office 365. It will also have to throw out most of the routing infrastructure it just installed.

Works with existing software. Gmail integrates with other Google products that some university departments use, and with the document storage and management system from Box, which the university already bought. Office 365 can work with SharePoint and Lync (which it mistakenly calls Lynx), but it was not interested in those solutions and didn’t even consider them.

Easier to develop on. More people on campus know how to work with Google’s APIs than with Microsoft’s Exchange.

Migration of email groups. Google has a product that could be used to migrate Cal’s existing Mailman mailing lists to Gmail. Microsoft recommended against even trying to migrate Mailman to Exchange.

The solutions were pretty close in other areas, like delegated administration (neither was great, but Google was slightly better), user familiarity (it depends on what product people are using today), and mobile support.
Microsoft won for authentication and the ability to integrate with on-premise systems.

No two customers will have the same needs, but this is a good exercise to show how these decisions are made — and why Gmail increasingly has an advantage among highly cost-conscious organizations like educational institutions and governments.

New Features

• Support for Postgres 9
• Ability to specify folders to exclude from migrations (all platforms)
• Re-architected Email message saving and retrieval
• Added OK button to configuration dialog

Fixes

• Apply incoming shared folder settings to GroupWise calendar migrations (fixes duplicate appointments with shared calendars)
• Better reporting if a process fails

Notes

As usual, if you have any queries about the tool, usage, pricing or anything else contact us.

The latest version of the tool can always be downloaded from our migration tool download page.

Macquarie University, is home to approximately 35,000 students and 5,500 members of staff. The beautiful 126 hectare of park-like campus is an ideal setting for discovery and learning. Located within the high-technology corridor of Sydney’s north-west, Macquarie University graduates are highly sought-after. Macquarie University is one of Australia’s leading research universities, it is a dynamic, flexible and engaged university committed to excellence in research, teaching and global citizenship. Formed in 1964, the University prides itself on being enquiring, open to new ideas, new ways of thinking and new ways of ensuring a sustainable institution.

Business Need

Macquarie University have been providing a number of email systems for staff with the main system being a Novell GroupWise system. The GroupWise setup catered for approximately 80% of staff with the remaining 20% on a variety of other systems and provided email service to staff since 2005. With approximately 5,500 users, the Novell GroupWise system spanned over 29 GroupWise Post Offices. Beneath this impressive email infrastructure ran a well managed 8 Node Novell NetWare cluster.

In 2007 Macquarie University migrated the entire student body over to Google Apps for Education. With staff and lectures on GroupWise and students using Google Apps, managing multiple systems became a very costly undertaking.

“The main issue for Macquarie University was to remove the costs and complexity of managing multiple email systems and to consolidate on one system” – Norbert Attard, Technology Project Leader at Macquarie University

Solution

With a large student user base already happy on Google Apps, the choice was obvious. Macquarie University decided to migrate away from Novell GroupWise to Google Apps for it’s staff users.

Marc Bailey CIO at Macquarie University says:

“Success at cloud-sourcing email depends entirely on two factors beyond feature/benefits, namely out-of-box experience and consumer confidence. Cloud Technology Solutions delivered Macquarie University the best possible impression of our new system from the very first customer click. Combined with a great project team, some intense planning, training and communication, we were able to engender the confidence needed to rapidly reach an adoption tipping point, then smoothly proceed to completion”

Migrating staff would have been an extremely complex process as the users all took advantage of calendars and scheduling, along with maintaining contact information within the GroupWise address book. The University did not have the option to simply move to a different email system, as it did with students, it needed to migrate everything, email, calendar, chat and contacts.

Cloud Technology Solutions

Cloud Technology Solutions were the migration partner of choice to provide assistance and support with the Cloud Google Migrator, the market-leading migration tool widely used to migrate organisations to Google Apps from Novell GroupWise. The tool allows entire organisations of any size to migrate to Google Apps efficiently and with no downtime. As the Cloud Google Migrator had proven ability to migrate to Google Apps and supported email, calendar and contacts, it was a perfect match for the Universities requirements.

The migration was smooth and efficient. Simultaneously running the migration tool on 8 Dual Core 4GB workstations, Macquarie University seamlessly migrated all 5,500 users from Novell GroupWise to Google Apps for Education over the course of a few weeks and with no data loss.

“Cloud Technology Solutions were invaluable in helping us migrate our staff to Google Apps. The migration tool itself was excellent and meant we reduced our migration time by about 30%. Where any problems did arise the support response was first class”

Benefits

Currently 8 million students, faculty and staff at educational institutions around the world are using Google Apps, so Macquarie University are not alone.

Google Apps for Education now provides the entire campus community, including students, faculty, staff and alumni all the tools they need to communicate and collaborate more effectively. Providing over 7GB of email storage per student, Google Apps for Education delivers all the email and collaboration needs of Macquarie University.

“Cloud Technology Solutions Google Migrator allows organisations to seamlessly and easily migrate legacy email platforms to Google Apps significantly reducing the cost of running an IT department” – Steve Kaye, CEO, Cloud Technology Solutions

To learn more about how we can help your organisation Go Google, please contact us now.

For a PDF version of this document please complete your details below.

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New Features

• Display number of used and allocated licenses on the ‘License Key’ dialog
• Use Unicode more effectively to deal with non-western character sets
• Added a ‘Modify Request’ option to the Google settings to help deal with a proxy issue
• Added special handling for Turkish characters
• Added an option to migrate only the plain text body for internal GroupWise emails

Fixes

• Ensure that ‘Application Identifier’ is persisted. This is important so that, if using multiple tool instances with one database server, the correct database is used for each tool instance
• Documentation updated with new advice regarding using a shared database setup with multiple tool instances

For migrations using multiple tool instances with a shared database, this upgrade is highly recommended. Also please ensure that each instance of the tool has a different ‘Application Identifier’ if using with a shared database setup.

Download a trial of the tool now from our download area.

For more information about the migration tool or if you have an support queries, please contact us.

More information is also available to download in our datasheet.