So Many Mailboxes, So Little Time
When an Internet services company visited J2K Technology's Web site to learn how to speed up e-mail migration, the VAR responded with a powerful demo and a proposal that was quickly accepted.
Still not convinced Web sites generate revenue? Kevin Bock, president of VAR J2K Technology (Garden City, NY), knows that a quick sales response to an online customer inquiry followed up by a convincing demo helps integrators make sales. A hit to J2K's Web site from an Internet services company gave the VAR the opportunity to promote a solution for migrating 1,500 e-mail accounts within hours and insight into future projects.
At the time, the Internet services company was maintaining multiple e-mail servers in several states and knew it could be more efficient by transferring all users to a single Microsoft Exchange server. The cost of administering multiple sites was rising, and the complexity was overwhelming. What threatened to be even more overwhelming, however, was the prospect of manually migrating 1,500 users to the centralized data center.
J2K provided the prospective customer with a demonstration of ExMS Move Mailbox Manager (MMM) from Discus Data Solutions, Inc. (New York). MMM automates a customized procedure for migrating mailboxes in Exchange or mixed-mode environments. Using MMM, integrators can select which mailboxes will be migrated, schedule the migration time, and set rules for handling distribution lists, permissions, calendars, and other associated data. According to Bock, J2K has tested MMM and found that 1 GB of user data can be moved in about five minutes.
Software Eases Migration Headaches For End User, VAR
Without the time or resources to manually perform the migration in-house, the Internet services company found the $15,000 price tag to be a reasonable expense. The switch over was performed during a single weekend to minimize the effect on the company's operations and was completely seamless for users of the e-mail system. Bock says the training for the system administrator was also minimal.
In addition to speed, MMM also provided a high rate of accuracy. Nearly all of the users were migrated without a hitch. In the rare instances of failure, the performance reports generated by MMM allowed J2K to determine the cause. These performance reports outline each step in the migration process, resulting in documentation about which steps have been successfully completed. As a result, the integrator can pinpoint and quickly resolve any issues affecting the migration process. In addition to the installation itself, J2K also sold a standard maintenance contract with the purchase.
Bock believes e-mail migration technology is suitable for many users in a variety of markets, particularly in addressing two pain points. As in the example above, many companies would like to decrease their IT footprints by consolidating portions of their infrastructures. VARs can answer that demand with products that don't offset potential cost savings with drawn-out implementation periods and high price tags. Companies involved in mergers are another excellent prospect for this technology as it streamlines the consolidation of newly acquired assets.