/ Software CompanyHelps Customers Speed Migrations, Maximize IT Investments
Overview
Country or Region:United States
Industry:Professional services—Software engineering
Partner Profile
Quest Software provides software solutions that help simplify and reduce the costs of IT management for more than 100,000 customers. The company is based in Aliso Viejo, California, and has 3,500 employees worldwide.
Business Situation
To help customers maximize the return on their IT investments, Quest Software wanted to simplify migrations from other solutions to Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and Microsoft SharePoint Online.
Solution
Quest Software developssolutions to help customers simplify migrations. The solutions also provide pre- and post-migration analysis and planning.
Benefits
- Faster, more efficient migrations
- Better return on investment
- Stronger customer relationships, higher partner revenues
Doug Davis, Director, Product Management, Quest Software
Quest Software wanted to help customers quickly take advantage of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 to enhance collaboration and streamline enterprise content management. Thus, it expanded its solution set to help organizations migrate from older versions of Microsoft SharePoint Server and third-party collaboration solutions to on-premises SharePoint Server 2010, hosted Microsoft SharePoint Online, or hybrid environments. Quest assessment, migration, management, and customization solutions help speed migrations by up to 87 percent, and also help customers achieve maximum return on their SharePoint Server investments by creating an efficient and effective collaboration infrastructure. For Quest, the high migration success rate leads to long-term customer relationships and higher upsell potential—27 percent of the company’s migration customers have purchased additional Quest solutions.
Situation
Since 1987, Quest Software has helped more than 100,000 customers worldwide—including many of the largest financial institutions, auto parts manufacturers, healthcare systems, retailers, and federal government agencies—simplify and reduce the cost of managing their IT infrastructures. In 2010, Quest revenue was U.S.$767 million, and the company, which is dedicated to IT innovation, spends more than 18 percent of this annual revenue on research and development.
In 2004, Quest, a Microsoft Partner Network member with Gold competency in Independent Software Vendor/Software, recognized a growing desire among many of its customers to adopt Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies to enhance collaboration and streamline, simplify, and improve enterprise content management. The company interviewed hundreds of its own customers—all of whom believed that due to its ease of deployment, close integration with Microsoft Active Directory Domain Services and Microsoft Office applications, document collaboration capabilities, and an overall lower total cost of ownership, that within five years, Microsoft SharePoint Server would become a foundational technology in their environments.
These customer predictions proved to be highly accurate, and since 2007 the Quest customer base forSharePoint Server solutions has increased by 728 percent. Invariably, Quest customers are also attracted by the enterprise-scale capabilities of the newer versions of the technology: Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010,and Microsoft SharePoint Online, which is delivered online as part of the Microsoft Office 365 subscription service. Microsoft Office 365 is a set of cloud-based email, calendaring, collaboration, and conferencing services combined with web-based versions of the popular Microsoft Office programs.
For IT departments, key capabilities of the newer versions include support for managed metadata and corporate taxonomies, the ability to manage large SharePoint lists and other data, a scalable services architecture, centralized administration, and interoperability with third-party systems. For business users, key features include enhanced collaboration and search, social media integration, and simplified, streamlined document and web content management.
To quickly take advantage of the features named above, many Quest customers sought help migrating enterprise data, documents, applications, and business processes to SharePoint Server 2010 and SharePoint Online. Many customers relied on third-party collaboration and document management products such as IBM Lotus Notes, older versions of SharePoint Server, Microsoft Exchange Server public folders,or network-based file shares. “Our customers are motivated by the cost savings, productivity enhancements, and collaboration benefits that SharePoint Server delivers—but they need help in getting there,” says Doug Davis, Director, Product Management, Quest Software.
Especially in Lotus Notes to SharePoint Server migrations, customers were challenged by the fact that they needed to migrate documents and information, as well as older, custom-built applications—such as intranet publishingor clinical trial applications—to the SharePoint Server environment. “Many of our customers had used Notes for a long time,” explains Steve Walch, Senior Product Manager at Quest Software. “They needed to gain a thorough understanding of the content in their environment, as well as whether and how they were going to rebuild custom applications in SharePoint.”
Quest also wanted to help its customers adopt SharePoint Server 2010 and SharePoint Online quickly and successfully. “We encounter many organizations, which, after completing a migration, lack a successful management plan for their SharePoint Server environment,” says Davis. For instance, an organization may have migrated unnecessary, unused content from its previous environment, or needed to restructure its content in a more logical way to encourage use. “The sooner and more successfully our customers can use the new technology, the sooner they can take advantage of the modern, productivity-enhancing features of SharePoint Server.”
Solution
In 2004, Quest began to develop software designed to help customers transition to SharePoint Server. Now, the company offers a broad range of solutions to ease migrations to SharePoint Server 2010 and SharePoint Online. The company also provides solutions for pre-migration analysisand post-migration administration, management, and customizationrelated to SharePoint Server 2010 and SharePoint Online.
Pre-Migration Assessment
Whether migrating to SharePoint Server 2010, SharePoint Online, or a hybrid environment that includes both products, the pre-migration process is the same. Using Questsolutions, a customer analyzes its collaboration and enterprise content management environment whether based in Lotus Notes or older or specialized departmental SharePoint Server sites.
When migrating from Lotus Notes, customers use Quest Notes Migrator for SharePoint to discover, classify, and analyze the importance (based on usage statistics) of its third-party-based applications. This tool helps customers determine which applications can be easily replicated using out-of-the-box SharePoint Server 2010 features such as automated workflow and pre-built, customizable site templates. It also identifies applications that require custom development.
In a migration from an earlier version of SharePoint Server to SharePoint Server 2010 or to a hosted SharePoint Online environment, customers take advantage of Quest Site Administrator for SharePoint. This tool helps IT departments work efficiently by thoroughly understanding all servers and sites in the older SharePoint Server environment, helping to ensure that only necessary files are moved.
Migration of Content and Applications
Once an organization completes the pre-migration analysis and creates a target environment for its content and applications in SharePoint Server 2010 or SharePoint Online, it proceeds to the actual migration. During migration, Questsolutions help companies take advantage of the features and capabilities of SharePoint Server 2010 and SharePoint Online that will engender the biggest return on their IT investments.
For instance, an international provider of business process outsourcing with more than 100,000 users is using Quest Notes Migrator for SharePoint to transition from Lotus Notes to SharePoint Server 2010.This company is assessing and migrating more than 10,000 custom-built applications from Lotus Notes to SharePoint Server 2010 to take advantage of many out-of-the-box SharePoint Server 2010 capabilities, such as automated workflow, and to re-implement these applications in the new environment.
Quest Notes Migrator for SharePointis also being used by systems integrators to aid in customer migrations. For instance, Allegiant, a Quest partnerand Microsoft Partner Network member, is helping an automobile partsmanufacturer migrate from Lotus Notes to SharePoint Server 2010 while taking advantage of the managed metadata capabilities in SharePoint Server 2010. Using managed metadata, the company can centrally define taxonomies and enterprise content types for its data, allowing it to easily manage and apply tags to documents to ensure consistent use of terminology and enhance enterprise search results. For example, with SharePoint Server 2010, the auto parts manufacturer can store and manage codes for each of its suppliers in a centralized term store to enable easy reference by users.
A multinational semiconductor company is also using Quest Notes Migrator for SharePoint to migrate from Lotus Notes to SharePoint Server 2010. In its new environment, the company will take advantage of SharePoint Server 2010 Document Sets, which enable its users to associate multiple documents with a single work item, wrapping them into a single version for review and approval workflows.
Quest solutionsalso help organizations migrate content from older versions of SharePoint as well as other environments to SharePoint Server 2010 and SharePoint Online. For instance, when migrating from Windows operating system file shares,or Microsoft Exchange Server public folders, organizations use Quest File Migrator for SharePoint or Quest Public Folder Migrator for SharePoint. When conducting on-premises SharePoint Server-to-SharePoint Server migrations, organizations use Migration Manager for SharePoint. To migrate to SharePoint Online, they rely on Migrator for SharePoint Online.
Once migrated, organizations can take advantage of many SharePoint Server 2010 features, such as pre-built site templates, custom forms using InfoPath Forms Services, and extensive social networking features such as wikis, blogs, and rating systems. SharePoint Online customers take advantage of a central location to share and manage documents and business information; provide users with access to critical resources from virtually anywhere; and manage access to individual documents—while also benefiting from the lower costs and streamlined management associated with hosted collaboration.
Management and Administration
Once complete, Quest helps customers assess the success of their migrations. “We help our customers ensure that the SharePoint site structure they created in the pre-migration assessment still makes sense and is working as it should,” says Davis. SharePoint Server provides a flexible, adaptable environment for organizations. For instance, administrators can modify SharePoint sites, document libraries, and applications to meet changing business demands. To aid in these endeavors, Quest Site Administrator for SharePoint can also be employed post-migration to analyze the SharePoint Server environment. Through the Site Administrator central dashboard, IT administrators and business managers canquickly determine which assets (including documents, sites, and applications) are being used, how they are being used, and by whom they are being used.
Benefits
Quest Software provides solutions to ensure that customers reap the full advantages of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and Microsoft SharePoint Online for better return on investment (ROI). The company’s highly effective migration solutions lead to long-term customer relationships and enhanced revenue opportunities for Quest and its systems integrator partners.
Faster, More Effective Migrations
Organizations who adopt SharePoint Server 2010 and SharePoint Online benefit from enhanced collaboration and search, streamlined administration, and lower IT costs. Quest solutions for pre-migration assessments help companies pare down and logically structure their SharePoint Server 2010 and SharePoint Online environments for faster, more effective migrations. Many large enterprises take advantage of Quest solutions to consolidate, restructure, and migrate complex environments, often containing tens of thousands of documents and sites, and numerous custom applications to SharePoint Server 2010 and SharePoint Online. One customer used a Quest solution to migrate a custom sales application to SharePoint Server 87 percent faster than without using Quest migration tools. “Our pre-migration assessment, migration, and post-migration analysis solutions result in efficient, effective migrations,” explains Davis. “And the faster and more effectively companies migrate to SharePoint Server, the sooner they can realize the benefits of a modern, consolidated, and highly interoperable collaboration environment.”
For instance, Allegiant uses Quest solutions to speed its customers’ SharePoint Server migrations. “We see tremendous demand for SharePoint Server 2010 from our customer base, due to its many enhancements,” says Justin Smith, SharePoint Consultant at Allegiant.“We've successfully used Quest Notes Migrator for SharePoint to facilitate several complex migrations for a large enterprise to enable our customer to beginstreamlining fundamental business processes in the SharePoint Server environment. Quest solutions have saved us and our customers significant time by allowing us to quickly and directly take advantage of SharePoint Server 2010 features including managed metadata and Document Sets.”
Better Return on Investment
With help from Quest, organizations quickly take advantage of the full range of SharePoint Server 2010 features and capabilities, including managed metadata, Document Sets, automated workflows, custom site templates and forms, and socialnetworking. “Many capabilities set SharePoint Server 2010 and SharePoint Online apart,” says Davis. “We help customers take advantage of all the capabilities of SharePoint Server to create customized environments that reflect their brand and personality.” With efficient, effective collaboration infrastructures in place, organizations are better able to achieve the maximum return on their SharePoint Server investments.
“Quest uses a holistic rather than a purely technical approach to migration,” adds Walch. “It is the tools plus the expertise that makes the deployments successful and enables our customers to take full advantage of SharePoint Server.”
With its foray into hosted SharePoint Server environments with the release of SharePoint Online, Quest also helps companies quickly realize cost and management advantages of a hosted collaboration environment. “SharePoint Online is compelling to our customers in terms of cost savings and ease of management,” says Davis. While there are slight technical differences in migrations to on-premises versus hosted solutions, the Quest solutions perform the same set of functions. “The process is the same and repeatable.”
Stronger Customer Relationships, Higher Revenues
Migrations to SharePoint Server 2010 and SharePoint Online using Quest solutions are so successful that customers continue to rely on the company for additionalSharePoint Server management and customization solutions. In fact, 27 percent of Quest SharePoint Server migration customers purchase additional solutions from Quest. “When a customer successfully migrates to SharePoint Server 2010 or SharePoint Online using Quest solutions, it is likely to lead to a long-term relationship for other SharePoint Server management and customization initiatives,” says Dan Gauntner, SharePoint Solutions Product Marketing Manager at Quest. “Customers who use our products to realize the full potential of SharePoint Server 2010 and SharePoint Online trust our solutions, and rely on them time and again.”
Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010
Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 is the business collaboration platform for the enterprise and the Web.
For more information about Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, go to: