Kingston University

challenge

The challenge facing the team, was how to smoothly, and securely, migrate more than 300TB of data from cloud and on-premises file shares to Microsoft 365, and enable users with the appropriate training to maximise the University’s investment in the platform.

Kingston University needed a migration partner who could meet their capability requirements and help ensure long-term user adoption through user education.

So, as the University’s IT managed services provider, CSI recommended AvePoint whose Microsoft Gold Partner status, expertise in the cloud, and Microsoft 365 training gateway made them the perfect partner.

As a company, our goal is to ensure our customers get the right technology to achieve the outcomes they are looking for. We knew AvePoint had performed many successful migrations and could help deliver the results needed. Due to the breadth of capability of AvePoint’s solutions and the fact that there were other requirements that Kingston University wanted to address, we recommended the partnership.

– James Carmichael, Client Director of Public Sector at CSI

SOLUTION

AvePoint started the data migration project in September 2022 and it’s estimated to take 16 months to migrate up to 400TB of data to OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, and SharePoint Online.

The initial data discovery helped to identify important, relevant, and sensitive content. This exercise informed what content should be migrated into Microsoft 365 and how to manage it moving forward – in accordance with the University’s strategy and compliance guidelines.

Phase one focused on migrating professional services staff (IT, HR, finance, and backend teams) – including data in personal files, folders, and shared files to Microsoft 365.

Kingston University’s training and communication program has been launched to educate staff members on best practices, techniques, and functionality necessary to leverage Microsoft 365 for better communication and collaboration.

The content is personalised to staff members, students, and academics and built from real-life user scenarios so groups and departments better understand the impact these new tools will have.