Managed GCC
Deployments & Migrations
The question we ask first is what happens if this goes badly at 6am on Monday. If there is no answer, the plan is not finished.
Project work is where the year's goodwill is won or lost. Everyone remembers the migration that ran long and the office move where nothing worked on the first morning - and nobody remembers the fifty ordinary weeks either side.
What we run
Office relocations and new site build-outs. Email and file platform migrations. Server and application moves to cloud or new hardware. Endpoint refreshes and operating system rollouts. Acquisitions where two estates have to become one.
Planning that includes the way back
Every cutover plan states the rollback trigger, who can call it, and how long the return takes. Deciding that under pressure at six on a Monday morning is how a difficult migration becomes an outage.
Pilot, then scale
A representative pilot group first - not the most technical users, who work around problems without reporting them. The pilot exists to find what the plan missed, so we deliberately include the awkward cases.
Communication as a work stream
People tolerate disruption they were warned about and resent disruption they were not. Notices, floor-walking on day one and a visible route to report problems do more for perceived success than shaving a few hours off the technical cutover.
Closing properly
Documentation updated, licences reclaimed, old systems decommissioned rather than left running quietly, and a short review of what went wrong. Half-finished migrations that were never formally closed are one of the most common things we inherit.
What is included
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Rollback planning
A stated trigger, a named decision-maker and a known return time - agreed before cutover.
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Representative pilot
Deliberately including the awkward cases, because they are what the plan missed.
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Communication plan
Notices, day-one floor-walking and a visible route to report problems.
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Formal close-out
Documentation updated, licences reclaimed and old systems actually decommissioned.
Common questions
Before you ask
No. Most engagements start with either an assessment or a co-managed arrangement where we take tickets and after-hours while your team keeps everything else. Expanding from there is a decision you make with two quarters of evidence rather than a sales promise.
Per user per month for the recurring service, with servers and sites priced separately. Project work, migrations and hardware are quoted individually so the monthly fee never becomes the place surprise costs hide.
A dedicated offshore team working only for you, in an entity we set up and run to your standards. It is not a shared outsourcing pool - the people are yours, and if you want to own the entity eventually, the transfer date goes in the contract up front.
Below roughly 50 seats the governance overhead usually eats the saving. Between 50 and 150 it works if the work is coherent enough to justify dedicated leadership. Above 150 the economics are almost always favourable if retention holds.
Frequently, and it is one of the arrangements that works best. We agree a written split of responsibilities before starting so nothing lands in the gap between two teams, and we work inside your ticketing system rather than making you adopt ours.
Related
Often bought together
Managed IT Services
Monitoring, patching and service desk - plus managed application services for the ERP and legacy systems your business actually runs on.
ExploreCo-Managed IT & Help Desk
Your internal team keeps the strategy and the relationships; we take the tickets, the nights and the overflow.
ExploreCybersecurity
Managed detection and response, endpoint hardening, and the evidence your insurer and clients now demand.
ExploreReady to find out what your IT is really costing you?
A 45-minute working session gets you an honest read on estate health, security posture, and the two or three changes that would pay for themselves first.