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Client
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Origin Group and its housing association members SPH Housing and Griffin Homes provide over 5,000 affordable homes and support services to customers in 23 boroughs in London and the Home Counties.
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| Issue |
The costs, overheads, compatibility with other products and training issues related to the Groups use of Lotus Notes were becoming intolerable. The final straw came with the difficulties of using Lotus Notes as well as enabling mobile working.
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| Solution
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Origin decided it was time to move to Microsoft. Whilst the Lotus Notes system still functioned adequately in its own right, it did not function with Origin's Housing Database (Orchard), a core business application. This application is designed to integrate with Microsoft Exchange and as such was the primary driver for the email migration.
Origin wanted to work with an IT provider who had completed Lotus Notes to Exchange 2007 migrations for organisations of a similar size to Origin. "We needed to be confident that the migration would run smoothly as we didn't want any issues to arise that would affect the day-to-day running of the organisation," explained Kevin Hider, Group Head – ICS. A mini tender process was implemented, with four known suppliers including ComputerLand invited to tender for this specific IT project.
Computerland's proposal detailed the envisaged hardware, software and technical resource costs involved with the implementation and subsequent migration of the Lotus Notes users' mailbox data. Information relating to the optional implementation of additional Exchange server resilience using DoubleTake replication software was also included.
The proposed resilience option allowed ComputerLand to configure Exchange server replication and failover to a secondary server and formed an essential disaster recovery solution with rapid recovery benefits to Origin's business.
Once all proposals were received, Origin evaluated the details. "We decided to invite our users into the process so they were involved in the decision making and we saw all four suppliers present," highlighted Kevin Hider. "Everyone thought ComputerLand's presentation was the best and that they had the track record. The team were confident that they would complete the project on time and within budget."
ComputerLand won the tender, having carried out many migrations of this nature before and having proven expertise and project management capabilities.
Following thorough project planning and testing, ComputerLand undertook the migration to Exchange. The migration project was completed successfully and without disruption to Origin's day to day operations, management team or user base.
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| Result |
"I don't think I've been involved in an IT project that has gone so well. It was on time and to budget, and we've got lots of happy users. It is one of the best project implementation I have ever seen. It was amazing – the project just flew through," commented Kevin Hider. |
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