SETU performs seamless Microsoft migrations with Quest services and support

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• Expedited projects and reduced risk with help from dedicated Quest experts who guided SETU through migration processes
• Ensured every staff member had a SETU email account within an extremely tight deadline
• Delivered a unified IT environment quickly to better support 3,000 staff and 20,000 students

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About the customer…

In 2018, Ireland introduced the Technological Universities Act, which enabled smaller institutes of technology to merge, forming larger technological universities. This act led to the formation of South East Technological University (SETU) when two regional institutes of technology – Waterford IT and IT Carlow – merged in 2022. As Ireland’s sole university in its southeast region, SETU is well known for its contributions to scientific research and has an impressively high employment rate for newly graduated students. But the creation and success of SETU required impressive behind-the-scenes efforts, as the university’s tech team needed to perform a major Microsoft migration.

Finding the right migration solution

Consolidating two IT environments that support about 3,000 staff and 20,000 students was a daunting prospect. “This was really the first merger with an external party,” recalled Dave Carthy, a senior technical officer at SETU whose core responsibilities include managing Azure and Office 365. “It was scary for us and very, very new. And when you’re breaking new ground, you want to work with people you trust.”

IT managers and staff at SETU explored various offerings to help migrate Office 365, including email, SharePoint and OneDrive, as well as Active Directory. After receiving recommendations from a third-party vendor and peer organizations to choose Quest, SETU selected the Quest On Demand Migration solution as well as Quest Support and Professional Services.

“We couldn’t see anybody that was able to offer us the rewrite facility like Quest was, and the userfriendliness of that,” said Dave. “There’s not an awful lot of people out there doing what Quest does. I couldn’t see anything that compared, to be honest.”

Positive reviews and past experiences

“The education world is quite small in Ireland and other technological universities had started their mergers before us and were using Quest tools, so we were able to discuss it with other people and they said, ‘Yes, this is really good to use.’” Hearing so many glowing reviews and having had his own positive experiences, Dave said, “When we looked at Quest, we said, ‘Yeah, it’s a no-brainer, really.’ Quest tools are the obvious choice.”

Designation Day

The migration project kicked off with an important initiative and a tight timeline. “Designation Day was the 1st of May, 2022,” said Dave. “That was the day that SETU became a legal entity, and we needed to have a SETU website that day. The users needed to have SETU email addresses. And that’s where Quest came in, because we needed Quest to be able to facilitate that first. We did not have enough time to complete the work that was necessary to fully create SETU accounts. We couldn’t have fulfilled that role without Quest. Using Quest tools, every staff member had a new email address by the 1st of May. That went without any issues. It worked perfectly.”

With On Demand Migration, SETU could migrate all their workloads and Active Directory using a single comprehensive Office 365 migration solution. This tenant-to-tenant migration tool gave SETU full visibility into their migration project and the ability to track progress in real time, all while ensuring coexistence during the migration.

The unique functionality in this SaaS-based tool that can also migrate on-premises AD environments helped ensure a seamless transition. And while the migration project at SETU is ongoing, the initial phase of migrating the first round of accounts went smoothly. “The plan was to do it at night,” Dave said. “The user would go home at five o’clock; in the morning, when they came in, their email would be cut over. The user successfully executed a seamless sign-in process, utilizing their SETU credentials for both PC access and email authentication, thereby ensuring a unified and secure user experience across the SETU platform. The migration tasks were totally invisible to the end user.”

The Quest migration solution has been invaluable for preventing issues and meeting tight deadlines, and so have the experts from Quest Support and Professional Services teams who played a pivotal role in SETU’s migration success.

Supporting success

Dave’s advice for anyone preparing for a migration is to reach out early on to Quest Support and Professional Services. “If you engage Quest at the beginning of your migration journey, I don’t think you will make any mistakes. I think it’s imperative that you just go to Quest and actually formulate a plan with Quest. I wouldn’t go anywhere else. They’ve been so helpful. When we told them exactly what we wanted to do, they were able to tell us straight off. They have so much experience.”

Beyond their expertise, Dave also appreciated how friendly the Quest team members are. “You build up a rapport with people. They were great in that respect, having a light-hearted chat, but also getting everything done and working through things. I love Quest Professional Services. The technical support at Quest is the best I’ve ever had,” Dave said. “If I could deal with Quest people every day, I’d be happy. They were absolutely fantastic. They essentially showed us how to use Quest solutions properly and made things so much easier.”

Whenever SETU’s IT staff needed help, a knowledgeable Quest expert stepped in with guidance. “We’d say, ‘Look, can we get somebody to go through this with us?’ And we showed what we had, and they’d say, ‘That really doesn’t do what you need to do. This is what you need to do.’ And we did the work, but they guided us.”

Dave was also grateful that Quest never gave him the runaround. “There’s no delay,” he said. “They always get the people who are needed. One time, I inadvertently logged the call incorrectly and got onto the wrong team. And after explaining it, the Quest technician said, ‘Well, you’re actually onto the wrong team here.’ And I was like, ‘Okay, now I’ve got to go log another call and speak to somebody. It’ll be two days’ time.’ But he said, ‘No, no, leave it with me. I’m just going to ping somebody on the other team.’ And then the other technician came on with me and problem solved in 10 minutes. Nobody does that,” he said, adding that any other company would make you start over and wait. “That’s not the case at Quest. I just found it brilliant. And I said, ‘I’ve never experienced that.’”

Top-notch support

Dave has a long list of Quest experts he recalled by name, praising many of their qualities. Of one in particular, he said, “He was amazing. And I love talking to him. I send him emails every now and again just to annoy him when I have questions,” he joked. “And he comes back to me straight away. What he doesn’t know, you’d fit on a postage stamp. He’s very good and so easy to talk to.”

Dave added, “Even just simple little hints and tips about how to create templates and workflows and naming things. Those years of experience really made a difference in making everything easier.”

And it all paid off, as SETU successfully completed the initial phases of their migration project. “With anybody we’ve moved over, everything was perfect. Nobody lost anything.”

The ongoing relationships and all the insights the Quest teams provided have been instrumental in SETU’s ability to perform seamless migrations. “Quest Support and Professional Services, they’re absolutely top-notch. We couldn’t have done what we’ve done without them.”