Analytics India Magazine connected with Mark Kirstein, VP- Products at BitTitan, who tips on approaching migrations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
We know many companies are looking to expedite cloud migration during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, cloud-managed service providers have been loaded with migration requests. To meet such demands, experts have been touting for automating migration so the challenges could be met seamlessly.
To understand cloud migration challenges, Analytics India Magazine connected with Mark Kirstein, Vice President, Products at BitTitan. BitTitan is a global company that helps professionals deploy and manage cloud technologies through automation.
AIM: What are the biggest innovation trends you see in managed services cloud automation currently?
Mark Kirstein: The cloud managed services market has been healthy, and migrations often serve as the starting point for cloud implementation. A migration may sound simple, but they are often complex. With many new implementations, it’s hard to find individuals with the right knowledge and skillset to streamline the migration. Therefore, the right automation tools are the key to success.
The cloud-to-cloud migration market has been steadily growing. We continue to see growth in double digits. We also continue to see movement between Office 365 and G Suite going in both directions, with Office 365 outpacing G Suite by adding users at a rate of 2:1. More than 50% of BitTitan’s business is tenant-to-tenant migrations, and we continue to see a steady rise in this area as well.
AIM: How can companies deal with cloud migration challenges during COVID-19?
Mark Kirstein: Above all else, planning is essential. BitTitan has several tips for approaching migrations during the current pandemic: Assess the project size and timeline for the migration. Then, identify the components you need to migrate; this is an opportunity to clean the house. Further, identify potential challenges and determine if the aid of a partner is necessary. Migrate mailboxes first to guarantee communication can be kept intact. From there, determine which Teams, groups or other workloads need to be migrated as well.
Think bandwidth and timing. Several organisations are presently working remotely at the moment, and utilisation of programs like SharePoint Online and OneDrive goes extremely high during daytime peak hours. Microsoft and Google have said that throttling, which limits the number of simultaneous requests to service to limit overuse of resources, is lessened during evenings and weekends to enable migrations to happen. MSPs must be cognizant of the peak hour schedule to assure they’re administering a migration project during a window that enables fast execution and efficiency for a smooth migration.
Prioritise security and data governance. Make sure security processes and protocols are understood and followed, ensure security protections are appropriately set up and configured along with the governance infrastructure.
AIM: BitTitan helps manage cloud technologies through automation. Can you elaborate on the automation technology?
Mark Kirstein: Absolutely. All migrations – cloud and on-premises – are fully automated with MigrationWiz, eliminating manual methods to minimise downtime and reduce errors. The migrations are initiated and run from one central dashboard. When leveraging MigrationWiz, MSPs and IT pros can manage all workgroups and migration projects, monitor active migration statuses, report on completed projects, view licensing information, and access the BitTitan Support and Help Center.
MigrationWiz also offers a robust selection of Advanced Options, including Customisable Email Notifications, Date Range Filtering, Impersonation or Delegation, Folder and Recipient Mapping, Audit Logging, and more. New migration projects can be configured and initiated in a matter of minutes. MigrationWiz guides the process from start to finish, supporting your selection of project type, source and destination endpoints, and importing users and items.
AIM: Please elaborate on the other solutions that BitTitan is offering in India.
Mark Kirstein: For our enterprise customers in India, BitTitan provides the fastest and easiest solution to remotely migrate users and data to the cloud, enabling employees to continue working from anywhere. MigrationWiz is the industry-leading 100% SaaS solution for mailbox, document, public-folder and Microsoft Teams migrations between a broad range of sources and destinations. Since 2009, BitTitan has migrated over 19 million users to the cloud for 43,000 customers in 187 countries and currently supports leading cloud ecosystems such as Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Dropbox.
AIM: What has been the impact of COVID-19 in the context of client demands for BitTitan?
Mark Kirstein: Business has been steady with mid-size and large enterprises, and in some cases, it has even picked up. These companies are accelerating their cloud migrations to maintain business continuity, especially if they rely on on-premises systems. They need to leverage cloud services to implement the tools, services and infrastructure that’s necessary to enable remote work for their employees to maintain productivity.
Some migrations have been postponed, particularly those projects that are not considered “critical” migrations. Such slowdowns generally depend on customer factors like a company’s size or industry. For example, retail, restaurants, hospitality, travel and leisure are sectors that are substantially impacted by the coronavirus. These businesses are not spending money on new IT projects. Smaller businesses are currently taking a conservative approach to their operations and spending.
AIM: Finally, what are BitTitan’s expansion plans in India?
Mark Kirstein: While BitTitan has a presence in the APAC region, we are looking to increase awareness for MigrationWiz in India and expand our partner relationships. We wish to empower more organisations in India with automated solutions that will help them drive business growth.
Our cloud-based solutions can be accessed anytime from anywhere to enable successful cloud migrations that minimize downtime and lessen errors. MigrationWiz can scale to the requirements of companies ranging in size from a small or mid-sized business to big enterprise organisations. And our customer assistance team is continuously available to offer global support and documentation. They can help with step-by-step migration guides and troubleshooting tips.
