JEO Consulting Group Migration: Small Project, Big Deal
Callen Loveless is the Senior Systems and Network Administrator of JEO Consulting Group, a civil engineering firm serving communities in Nebraska, Iowa, and Kansas. Callen is not a migration expert. He already has enough to do.
JEO Consulting is an 84-year old firm that specializes in physical infrastructure for transportation, water resources, traffic, and municipal power. Callen supports the systems that keep the engineering teams humming. Clients depend on JEO for holistic project support – from high resolution drone imagery and traffic studies to 3-D modeling for planning and design.
JEO expanded into the construction business about two years ago. “We do a lot of work in construction services, so it made sense for us to invest in that area,” said Callen. “We started the subsidiary with just one employee, so we quickly got it off the ground with a domain and e-mail address from GoDaddy. Just five bucks a month.”
That worked fine until a few months ago when the construction company began growing rapidly and adding employees. The decision was made to bring the company into the JEO infrastructure.
It wasn’t going to be a big project – just eight accounts and about ten gigabytes of data – but this was the kind of data the company couldn’t afford to lose.
“Even though it was still small, the subsidiary’s employees were C-levels executives and board members from the parent company,” said Callen. “So, the project was going to have high visibility and I needed to assure that there would be no lost data or downtime.”
Knowledgeable support makes the difference
It was time for JEO to let go of GoDaddy. The five-dollar-a-month plan simply couldn’t support the features the firm was asking for. Callen knew he would need help with the migration, so he began exploring options.
“I’m not surprised that GoDaddy wasn’t super excited when I told them we would be migrating off their platform,” said Callen. “But they did recommend a couple migration options, including MigrationWiz. I reached out to BitTitan and was impressed with the immediate response.”
A BitTitan account manager suggested that Callen invest in an Advisor Hour with a technical expert who would walk him through the migration process. Callen was able to quickly set a meeting with Eric to walk through the nuts and bolts of MigrationWiz and how to use it for his specific project.
“Eric was so incredibly knowledgeable. He answered even my most nitty gritty questions. And I asked a lot of questions; we used the entire hour. Well, about 59 minutes and 59 seconds. Afterwards I had one more question and he quickly shot back a response. I got exactly the level of understanding I needed,” said Callen. “After that hour I was totally ready to hit ‘Run’ and execute the migration.”
Callen did talk to one other company that offers a migration solution. But he was disappointed to be matched with a salesperson who had no technical knowledge and only seemed interested in assessing JEO as a potential customer.
A quick and easy weekend migration
While Callen didn’t feel rushed with the timing of the migration, he knew that the construction company had a key hire starting and he should be able to hit the ground running with the integrated infrastructure.
“I had the Advisor Hour on Wednesday or Thursday and was ready to kick off the migration on Friday to get it done over the weekend,” said Callen. “And I was able to handle the migration on my own. Well, of course that’s because Eric did most of the setup.”
In addition to hands-on support during his Advisor Hour, Callen explored the BitTitan online Knowledge Base. “Documentation for MigrationWiz is absolutely stellar. It’s so clear and concise. And the troubleshooting tips are a breath of fresh air,” said Callen.
Callen said he would use MigrationWiz again if JEO’s growth led to the acquisition of additional companies. But he’s also happy not to have to be a migration expert. “MigrationWiz stands out for its accessibility and straightforward interface. And the pricing is so reasonable, it seemed almost dumb not to buy some licenses and try it out. But to me, the biggest benefit was that Advisor Hour where I could get all the detailed support I needed.”
Every migration is critical, no matter the size. Whether you’re a migration expert or you never want to be a migration expert, BitTitan has the support you need for your project to be a success.
