Migration services are vital as the pace of technology evolution increases

26th October 2020 By: Creamer Media Reporter

As the pace of technology evolution increases, so does the need for organisations to shift operations to the cloud, between clouds or environments, or simply transition employees over to using the latest, most effective, and productive applications and solutions. Under such circumstances, it should be obvious that the need for migration specialists is growing significantly.

Symbiosys IT, a technology solutions provider, has the tools, services, skills, and track record to be recognised as leading experts in migration services. With its South African head office located in the Western Cape, and its European head office in London, United Kingdom, Symbiosys estimates that it has been involved in migrating more than 500 000 seats over the last 16 years.

Company CEO, Patrick Assheton-Smith, says that Symbiosys has grown steadily over this period, while working closely with a range of interesting brands and organisations in over 36 countries around the world. 

“In the field of migrations, the broader and more diverse your skills, the better, which is why it is so important that our people bring significant international experience to the table. Having individuals on board with experience in multiple territories, and who have faced a range of unique challenges, positions us as the perfect partner for any type of migration, and for any organisation, whether large or small,” he says.

The need for migration services is growing rapidly, says Assheton-Smith, adding that these vary from being Active Directory or Exchange migrations, to scenarios where clients are moving from an on-premise set-up to Office 365, and can even encompass a complete lift and shift of databases and other systems into the cloud.

The benefits of migration include standardisation, unlocking value in shared services, reducing complexity and overall operation costs, and simplifying and enhancing collaboration and productivity.

Symbiosys is a Quest Platinum Plus partner and serves as a migration enablement partner, receiving referrals from previous customers and from the vendors that sell migration tools. Quest is the leading migration software company worldwide and a provider of tools for hybrid, on-premise and pure cloud solutions. Symbiosys is also a Microsoft Gold partner. “Migration has become our specialty over the years; it is certainly a skill we have embraced.”

According to Assheton-Smith, the importance of a good migration partner, which can undertake such a task rapidly and effectively, is often underrated. “With the size of the migrations we undertake, it is vital to implement these as fast as possible. After all, any large organisation that cannot effectively operate for several days, due to such an undertaking, would quickly find itself losing large sums of money, to the detriment of the entire business. It is our ability to avoid such delays that differentiates us from our competition.”

The Covid-19 pandemic demonstrated that those organisations that were already in the cloud handled this storm far better than those that were not. As a result, there can be little doubt that cloud adoption is rapidly increasing. It seems inevitable then, that as we move forward, this growth will increase exponentially, leading to a far greater demand for services to assist in migration to the cloud.

While migration is a key pillar for Symbiosys, the company also specialises in integration, automation, security and compliance, cyber-security, cloud networking, database management, identity management, end-point management, cloud management and collaboration and messaging solution implementations.

Assheton-Smith explains that the name Symbiosys was chosen specifically to highlight the company’s ability and willingness to forge partnerships with customers, with the common goal of collaborating ‘better together’. The key to true success here is to tailor a solution specifically to suit the customer’s individual needs. Unlike competitors that often get bogged down on the technical side of things, what sets Symbiosys apart is that it meets the customer needs through a clear understanding of the business – which then distils into the technical requirements.

“Symbiosys is successful because we understand the human element in technology, which is really what differentiates us from our peers. We truly live up to our name, constantly striving to create symbiotic relationships with our customers and partners. Thanks to our vast experience, we instinctively know what works, which means that whatever the future holds, we will not only be ready for it, but we will be positioned to ensure that our customers are able to face whatever this fast-evolving era holds, in an equally undaunted manner,” concludes Assheton-Smith.