Migrating from SmartCloud Notes and Connections Cloud

As you all know, or should know, IBM will discontinue its cloud offering for Mail and Connections in July 2020. This has raised a lot of questions from customers and partners about what to do, where and how to migrate, etc..

Today HCL hosted a webinar where they explained their strategy to address this concerns.

Mail:
There are 2 type of customers, those with a hybrid environment and those with a service only environment.
For the first, migration is easy. Just replicate locally the data from the cloud, then replicate it back to your selected cloud provider, or on premise if you decide to move there.
For the second HCL is still evaluating options on how to do that.

Connections:
HCL has identified three ( for now, others will arrive) partners that have been appointed MSP ( managed service partner ). Those partners will offer a Connections in cloud solution similar to what we have now with IBM.
They are Belsoft in Switzerland, ISW in Australia and Prominic in USA
Those partners will be provided with a Multi-tenant Connections code, so they will be able to provide the service for multiple customers at the same time.
The options for migrations depend on your destination of choice:
If you move to a MSP hosted solution for Connections, then IBM and HCL have developed tools to extract the data from the IBM cloud and put it in the MSP environment.
If you move to a private cloud or on-premises solution, you have to do the data extraction and import using the public APIs. You can ask to some BP who is familiar with the APIs to help you. I also know some BP are preparing a tool to extract and import the data. We have to wait for some news in this area

I will be speaking about HCL DX at Social Connections 15
Notes 10.x Autoupdate works only for English clients

Comments

  1. Rolf-Thore Johansen
    31st October 2019 - 10:22

    Well done, Roberto,

    If HCL is to prevent several of its customers from moving to Microsoft’s solutions, they must sharpen sharply!
    HCL / IBM must provide a true description of how they together can migrate customer solutions at IBM to HCL / MSP’s / On-prem without cost and risk, and where GDPR is met.
    The uncertainty created by this summer’s announcement about IBM’s closure of its service, must be eliminated. Too much noice! This can only happen by IBM / HCL jointly explaining how this would be solved.
    Most decision makers are not IT specialists and will be uncertain about the changes. Many executives will feel that ‘Microsoft has a solution that covers everything’ and thus HCL’s acquisition is unsuccessful. Richard must take hold now! Maybe the presentation on December 4 can give a clear answer, but I’m not sure. I find that there is a greater focus on ‘technology’ than customer safety and needs.

  2. As a Hybrid customer who’s licenses expires before the tools set is in place to migrate to an MSP. I’m left hold the bag to figure out how to do business with who we paid and how I’m to do business with HCL . HCL is working very much like IBM when it comes to business in my opinion. Begs a question: Is IBM going to be a Notes Domino, Connections customer of HCL and move to and MSP? It’s fairly irresponsible to think a company could figure all this out in a year. I’m out of time, from a business stand point forced to go elsewhere.

  3. Both.

    • If you are a hybrid mail customer the solution is easy. You ca use replication to move your data off the IBM cloud and into the MSP one, or also a private cloud or go back on-premises too. You do not have to wait for HCL to release any tool.
      For Connections you have to wait, the plan HCL has shown is to have everything ready for Q2 2020

  4. It’s made to sound easy but 1400 mail files and 900 traveler users . Each person doc then needs to be touched and 200 clients need reconfigured. (IBM made the MOM tool for this fact.), add 400 users walked thru switching phone settings again. Thats just the known. Getting it done before February 25th when our licenses ends. Then their’s my regular day to day. Nothing simple easy or value added. I emailed the ” off boarding team ” 4 days ago, no response yet. Oh yea and the 100k documents in Connections need to be moved. This isn’t in anyone’s IT budget I’d bet. Do you know of an easier way, in budget? Keep in mind I still would need a place to put the data. Lots of time and money. When I ask a VP & CTO for money for this do you guess what’s the answer was ?

    • You would run into the same problems migrating to something else like MS or Google. You can use an agent to update the person doc. For Connections if you move to a MSP hosted solution they will move the documents for you.

  5. Yes we will have this problem no matter what. MSP are not ready until March for Connections according to HCL. My license expire before that.
    I don’t have the hardware laying around to put all back.
    Thank you for all you time to read help and suggest.
    I’m sure this is a me problem and only a handful of customer fit this same condition.
    Again Thank You.

    • I am pretty sure you can renew your licenses and then wait for the MSP to be ready. Send a mail to danielle.baptiste@hcl.com , she’s the Product Manager for Connections, and explain your situation, I am sure she can find someone to help you

  6. Rolf-Thore Johansen
    4th December 2019 - 08:19

    Hello Mark,
    I think your license has moved to HCL as my have:
    HCL BUNDLE MAIL & SOCIAL COLLABORATION AU PER MONTHLY LICENSE
    As it is renewed, its expiration time is at November 29th 2020, so I have nothing to worry about.

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