OVERVIEW
B2B Technologies had the privilege of working with Morehouse College, a landmark college in the state of Georgia, in migrating their infrastructure environment to Office 365. The project had three distinct parts: (1) the migration of faculty and staff from an on-premises Exchange 2010 Infrastructure to a completely cloud-based, Office 365 Infrastructure, (2) migration of data and mailboxes for faculty and staff, and (3) creating licenses and mailboxes for students allowing for easy communication among students and faculty.
Morehouse College chose B2B Technologies based on several recommendations from past clients, and also due to knowledge and experience with Office 365 migrations. The project reared several challenges; but, with team collaboration, B2B was able to reach timely solutions and meet project deadlines.
Prior to the migration, Morehouse faced several internal challenges – aging infrastructure and dated technology, downsizing of personnel, and the addition of their new, visionary CIO – all requiring strategy alignment and team alliance. It was imperative for B2B to have a complete understanding of their internal challenges along with the understanding of the client’s needs in order to deliver a project that, not only met requirements, but also exceeded customer expectations.
Overall, the provisioning and migration project was successfully completed and Morehouse College is now operating on a cloud-based, Office 365 Infrastructure. The Morehouse IT team, MTG, which B2B Technologies had the pleasure of working alongside during this project, was very pleased with the outcome and timeliness of the migration and hopes to work with B2B Technologies in the future on other project initiatives.
OBSTACLES & OBJECTIVES
Understanding the client’s challenges helps in understanding why Morehouse chose Office 365 as their solution. Clifford Russell, recently joined Morehouse College as their CIO, bringing new strategies and creating an environment focused on service delivery. Having prior knowledge that Microsoft’s Office 365 is the leader in its industry, along with the ability to host corporate email – freeing up time to focus on service delivery and innovate in other areas, were all reasons Morehouse chose Office 365 as its go-to solution.
The B2B team assigned to this migration is a group of seasoned experts who have worked on numerous projects all presenting specific needs and challenges. This Office 365 project presented two major challenges which required some extra work but caused no delay in project completion.
Knowing from the beginning that this project required a quick turn-around from start date to completion, B2B Technologies was excited to take on the challenge to complete this migration project on time. Because of the time constraint, the team was unable to re-mediate the client’s Active Directory environment prior to migration; resulting in migration issues when they tried to synchronize unsupported UPNs. However, after communicating the issues with the MTG team, B2B was able to resolve the UPN problems and move forward with the migration.
The client’s IT team also had other project initiatives to tend to which could have created communication problems, consequently, pushing back the date of completion. Yet, the project team at Morehouse College was attentive and available when issues arose and worked diligently with B2B to ensure team synergy and project success.
OUTCOME
All objectives were met. B2B was able to provision and configure the Office 365 Tenant, migrate all data and mailboxes for faculty and staff, and also license and create mailboxes for students for Office 365. Since migration, Morehouse College has experienced almost-immediate benefits, like: 24/7 uptime, email support access via phone and email, and accessibility on-the-go promoting the service delivery environment we all strive to meet.
About Morehouse College
Morehouse College was founded in 1867 in Augusta, Georgia, before relocating to Atlanta in 1879, where it is still in operation today. Morehouse is a well-known, private, all-male, historically African-American college, and typically has an enrollment between 2,000 to 3,000 students and about 600 employees.
Morehouse College was the first, historically African-American college to produce a Rhodes Scholar. The prestigious college has been the recipient of recognition around the country and has also received multiple, scholarship donations from Oprah Winfrey in her continued efforts to partner with colleges around the country and grant education opportunities to those in pursuit of a prestigious, academic career.
About B2B Technologies
B2B Technologies is a Microsoft Gold Partner providing business productivity solutions using SharePoint, Business Intelligence, Messaging, Office 365 and Cloud platforms. B2B is also a Microsoft Cloud Accelerate Partner, Microsoft’s new certification for partners, providing Office 365 implementation and migration services. B2B’s mission is to help customers improve productivity, reduce risk and maximize the return on their IT investments. Connect with B2B Technologies on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.
B2B Technologies Contact
Jennifer Bluemling – Director of Marketing
B2B Technologies
Tel: 404-892-1500 opt.1, ext. 267
Email: jbluemling@b2btech.com