Kingston University Relies on AvePoint for SharePoint 2010 Migration

Online, October 5, 2011 (Newswire.com) - Today, AvePoint, a proven leader a proven leader in governance solutions for Microsoft SharePoint, has announced that Kingston University, a teaching facility for more than 22,000 students, has deployed AvePoint's DocAve Software Platform to speed migration from SharePoint 2003 directly to SharePoint 2010. In bypassing an implementation of SharePoint 2007, Kingston University will avoid unnecessary time spent in the transitional phase and has reduced the migration timeframe to SharePoint 2010 by 30 percent. By simplifying the migration process this way, the university's seven dedicated SharePoint staff resources are able to focus on improving the user interface and overall experience as the upgrade process is completed.

Having worked with SharePoint 2003 for five years, Kingston University made the decision to upgrade to SharePoint 2010 for its student and staff portals, citing improved flexibility and site design functionalities, social computing, and mobile support offered as key business drivers. As students increasingly rely on mobile devices for day-to-day access to university resources, improved user experience when on-the-go via SharePoint 2010 was a key aim of the project. The university will also utilise SharePoint for processing 40,000 student applications each year, taking advantage of DocAve's incremental back-up capabilities to negate any risk of significant data loss which could potentially impact the university's business operations, reputation and future success.

With DocAve, Kingston University has been able to:
• Guarantee access to additional university-specific information and applications in the student portal, feeding into a commitment to service excellence. This focus on service levels is crucial, especially with the increase in tuition fees.
• Manage large volumes of data from a single content database rather than via multiple databases, as had been the case with the previous implementation of SharePoint 2003. This change will simplify SharePoint administration on an ongoing basis, allowing IT staff improved visibility over content management.
• Alter incremental back-up functions to occur more frequently during peak times such as admissions and exam periods, avoiding any risk of significant data loss.

"After making the decision to migrate to SharePoint 2010, we became very aware that we needed an infrastructure management solution which would minimise resourcing requirements at the back-end, while also ensuring that service levels were kept high, particularly during important times in the academic year such as exam periods and admissions," said Dena Lawson, SharePoint Project Manager, Kingston University. "AvePoint simply took away the complexity of SharePoint 2010, allowing us to shift the focus from technical to content management which has been a huge benefit for us."

"SharePoint 2010 is virtually accessible anywhere and from any device, which hugely complements the flexibility demanded by an increasingly fast-paced, tech savvy and mobile education market," said Dr. Tianyi (TJ) Jiang, Co-CEO of AvePoint. "More and more businesses in this sector are looking to improve transparency and communications through SharePoint, and AvePoint has unrivalled experience in helping robustly manage and protect SharePoint environments to not only meet customer needs today, but also as their SharePoint usage evolves and grows in the future."