The VAR Guy

What if you could speed Small Business Server 2008 migrations by 50 percent, using cloud technology? Sound too good to be true? The folks at Evolve Technologies, a solutions provider in Fairfax, Va., seem to have found a cloud approach that truly accelerates SBS upgrades. Here’s the scoop.

Evolve Technologies leverages Doyenz Automated Virtual IT technology to manage SBS 2008 migrations in the cloud. The VAR Guy first told readers about Doyenz (and its potential implications for SBS deployments) in February 2009.

CEO Perspectives

The VAR Guy traded email with Evolve Technologies CEO Dave Sobel. His thoughts on SBS 2008 migrations involving Doyenz are quite clear:

“We’ve done two [migrations] now so far — with two more scheduled. One actually was completed just this past weekend.

The approach is one we’d already played with internally, but never in quite the automated fashion we get with Doyenz. What’s really compelling is the fact we can use the customer’s own server in the cloud and test it out — and most importantly, not have to manage any of the lab infrastructure around that. My guys don’t have to do any management of the lab, just image customer, build deployment, test it all out, and when they feel good about the migration, push it down and finish it off.

The real capper has been the customer piece of this — the first customer we did barely noticed the migration. We imaged their machine, moved them to the new physical server, pushed to the cloud, tested using THEIR system and THEIR data, and when we felt good about it, pushed it back down and moved them. Little bumpy around printers, but when isn’t printing a problem with x64 OS’s?

Sobel shares more thoughts on the Doyenz cloud, in a press release that’s expected to hit newswires on June 9.

Glass Half Full, or Half Empty?

No doubt, these are “interesting times” for Microsoft’s Small Business Server partners.

Questions about SBS 2008’s momentum (or lack thereof) surfaced last week when IBM alleged 1,000 SBS partners had embraced alternative Lotus solutions. Separately, The VAR Guy had heard some rumblings from VARs who were struggling to hook customers on SBS 2008.

Fast forward to the current week, and The VAR Guy has spotted two intriguing examples of VARs marching forward with SBS. First, Gaeltek of Manassas Park, Va., completed five SBS customer migrations in six weeks. And now, Evolve Technologies leveraging the cloud to speed customer migrations to SBS 2008.

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