What is our primary use case?
Most use cases for Quest On Demand Migration are when a customer has an old tenant, and for some reason they have to migrate their data to a new Office 365 tenant. I'm an independent consultant working with products from Quest, and doing projects with those products for my customers. Certain customers organize their licenses themselves, because they have their own dealer. In some cases, I also organize the license and resell products to the customer. On Demand Migration is a cloud product, software as a service.
How has it helped my organization?
The bottom line is that using On Demand Migration results in less effort for my customers to bring data over or to work with the data at a new location. It's not only less effort but there is less complexity and less cost involved. If they would have to do this type of work manually or build their own solution, that would cost them endless money. Quantifying how much they save by using the solution is very difficult, but building something like this on their own would require spending five or 10 times what they invest for the licenses for the product. The time savings are similar, on the order of five to 15 times less when using the solution as compared to building one on their own.
What is most valuable?
The solution is really stable when it comes to mailbox migration and all of the following work very well: the mail content the OneDrive for Business content migrating all Azure AD objects. These three parts are really solid. It's really easy to configure and you don't have to deal with errors. It's migration that I would call "fire-and-forget."
What needs improvement?
It's definitely the Microsoft Teams functionality that has a lot of aspects where improvements are needed. Microsoft 365 Groups are tightly connected to Teams and there are a lot of improvements needed there as well. I see potential in the SharePoint functionality. But right now, when it comes to SharePoint migration, we often have to use another tool because the SharePoint part in On Demand Migration is like a kid; it's very young and not mature. I would get rid of other products and only use On Demand Migration for SharePoint, if I could. The capability is there, but it is not that strong at the moment. That could change in the future.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Quest On Demand Migration for about one and a half years, but I have been working with Quest products for about 15 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's potentially solid. Mailbox and Azure AD object functionality are very solid. It's the Teams stuff, especially, that is not that solid. It has also to do with the interfaces to other manufacturers' products, among other things; it's not that solid and stable at all. There is also a part called Public Folder which is a pain. You can solve issues with it, as a consultant, behind the scenes, but never show to a customer how painful that is.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's quite scalable. But the more you have to scale, the bigger the project is, the more you need to automate. One problem with the product is that we, as independent consultants, do not have access to the automation components, which exist, apparently. If I had to do a really large project and automate, I think I would drown in trouble. It would make life complicated and would take more effort. I know from Quest consultants that those automation interfaces are around, but we are not allowed to use them at the moment, unfortunately. It's scalable for small and mid-size projects, but when it comes to large stuff it could be complicated. In terms of increasing our usage of the solution, if the projects are around and they are increasing, I would definitely increasingly use it. When you're familiar with something, you aren't interested in using another product.
How are customer service and support?
My experience with Quest technical support has been very good. They are also human beings, so they can't necessarily help with every case, but they really are okay. They are helpful.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
In this field, you don't really have many options. There is the SharePoint Migration Tool, which I have used. And it has happened, at times, in the past, that I have used tools from other vendors.
How was the initial setup?
Setting up On Demand Migration is very straightforward. Depending on the customer's environment it usually takes three hours, perhaps half a day. The implementation strategy always involves talking to the customer to make sure I understand what kind of security setup they have. That's the most important thing to get it working. I'm not very familiar with other similar solutions because I'm really focused on Quest. But in terms of how long the setup takes, you don't have hundreds of thousands of settings to configure. It's really easy to use.
What about the implementation team?
Sometimes Quest Support is involved in the setup. If the standard procedure does not work, if there are errors I'm not familiar with, then I involve Quest support. In most cases, it's a standard procedure and you don't have to involve anybody. But it does happen.
What was our ROI?
Its price-to-value ratio is quite okay. It's much better than it was one year ago.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution is on the more expensive side, when you compare it not only to BitTitan but to other tools in the cloud market. Of course, you receive things like Quest's support organization. Licensing is not really easy. You don't have the option to buy a very small license to just migrate certain stuff. You always get pushed to use enterprise or big licenses, which include things that the customer never uses. I miss granularity on price at times.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I have had hands-on experience with Metalogix, when it comes to SharePoint, and I have done one project with BitTitan. It's difficult to compare Metalogix with On Demand Migration because they are completely different, including the architecture. BitTitan is quite similar to On Demand Migration in a lot of areas. BitTitan is really its closest competitor.
What other advice do I have?
The big feature that is most spoken about when it comes to On Demand Migration is the ability to migrate Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and 365 Groups content, and public folders. I use those features, but they are more complicated and not that stable at the moment. Still, they are useful and helpful. The user-friendliness is okay. In most cases, my customers don't really use the product. They just tell me, "Do it. Use this product," so they cannot say if it's user-friendly or not. The end users almost do not see anything directly in the product. Anybody who is using the product should have a look at the current limitations. The documentation is very up-to-date, so have a look at what the product is capable of doing and what it's not capable of. Quest is really transparent. Compare prices with other vendors' products. Keep in mind that the support from Quest is really good so you should include that when looking at the prices and costs. That's quite important. Most importantly—and here is the consultant in me speaking—if you're a Quest customer, don't use it on your own. Get somebody involved who has already used it to help you. It will work much better.
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor. The reviewer's company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner/Reseller.
