OTP Bank

Business Area:

Financial Services

Major Objectives:

Migration of 3,000 mailboxes from Lotus Domino/Notes to Microsoft Exchange/Outlook.

Vendor:

Products and Solutions Used:

- Notes Migrator for Exchange

OTP Bank is one of the leading banks in Ukraine; it is part of OTP Group, which operates in eight Eastern European countries and serves 12 million customers through 1,500 branches. The bank’s IT department turned to Dell Software for help in migrating 3,000  mailboxes quickly and seamlessly.

Email is business-critical

As in most organisations today, OTP Bank’s IT investments were driven by the need to minimise expenditure and overhead. In order to reduce software maintenance fees, the bank had decided to move from Lotus Domino/Notes to Microsoft Exchange/Outlook. The bank was already using a number of other Microsoft products, including SharePoint, Lync, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008, so it felt that its employees would be gaining benefits in functionality by using these products together. Since email is a business-critical tool, OTP Bank needed to move to the new Microsoft Exchange/Outlook environment seamlessly, without its users being impacted. Since two email systems would need to be supported throughout the transition period, it was important that the move be completed as quickly as possible; all the users had to be transferred to Microsoft Exchange within 7 months.

“Without features that would enable message format/active content compatibility, address book synchronisation and archive conversion, there would have been a very high risk of failure resulting in unplanned user downtime,” explains Eduard Gabai, Head of Enterprise Systems Engineering Department at OTP Bank. “This would have had a detrimental impact on business productivity, and ultimately, the bottom line; this was not a risk that OTP Bank was prepared to take.”

Instead, OTP Bank knew that a specialised migration solution was needed, one that would allow the two email systems to coexist flawlessly.

Mitigating the risk of a failed migration and unplanned downtime

Based on recommendations from Microsoft and its trusted IT partner, BAKOTECH, and following a successful POC, OTP Bank selected Dell Notes Migrator for Exchange and Dell Coexistence Manager for Notes. Notes Migrator for Exchange mitigates the risk of downtime and data loss, and eliminates IT and help desk burden by ensuring a ZeroIMPACT migration from Notes to Exchange 2007/2010/2013, оffice 365 and hosted Exchange without impacting workflow. OTP Bank found that the Dell migration solution covered the entire migration process, and ensured seamless coexistence of both email solutions, which was vital.

“Notes Migrator for Exchange fully met our requirements for step-by-step migration with the ability to roll back to mitigate the risk of failure, coexistence, and minimal impact on our users,” notes Gabai. “It also proved to be an extremely cost-effective solution for us.” Dell Software’s reputation as a  wellrespected vendor was an additional deciding factor. OTP Bank engaged BAKOTECH and its trusted partner BMS Consulting to perform the migration, and to provide project management, design, architecture, implementation and fine tuning throughout.

Seamless migration – on time and on budget

Dell Software’s migration solution ensured OTP Bank’s email migration was seamless, on time and on budget.

“Notes Migrator for Exchange helped us to migrate all 3,000 users as quickly and painlessly as possible, without any unplanned downtime,” says Gabai.“It was business-critical that we met the seven-month deadline, and we couldn’t have done that without the Dell solution.”

OTP Bank realised significant time savings as a result of using the Dell solution.

“We migrated all 3,000 users in seven months using Notes Migrator for Exchange, which was faster and less painful than using native tools,” explains Gabai. “It would have taken at least a year had we used the native tools - the Dell migration solution delivered a time saving of 42 percent.”

100 percent ROI within one year

The migration project delivered 100 percent ROI within one year.

“The value delivered to us by Notes Migrator for Exchange means that our migration project paid for itself within 12 months,” notes Gabai.

OTP Bank has also experienced a number of indirect benefits following its email migration.

“Our email infrastructure has been optimised, which has reduced server maintenance expenses, and we no longer need to employ email support specialists, as this can be undertaken by our existing Microsoft administrators,” explains Eduard. Good support and services. The bank was extremely satisfied with the level of support received from its partners. “BAKOTECH and BMS Consulting have worked very closely and cooperatively with us, exceeding our expectations,” adds Gabai. “We’ve also found Dell Software’s support to provide a very responsive online and email service.”

About Dell Software
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