GCC to GCC Migration for CMMC Compliance
Case StudyPanhandle Power Solutions
Migrating Panhandle Power Solutions to a new Government Community Cloud tenant
Panhandle Power Solutions (PPS), a subsidiary of Bristol Bay Native Corporation (BBNC), is a nationwide energy solutions provider specializing in renewables, industrial and commercial electrical services, and general construction. In 2023, PPS transitioned from BBNC’s construction holding company into the Bristol Bay Industrial (BBI) portfolio of companies to complement their robust set of electrical capabilities.
Challenge
PPS has been a federal contractor since its inception, providing general construction and electrical services to the nation’s most critical defense facilities. “We have many DoD contracts,” said Robert Irving, IT Manager at Panhandle Power Solutions. “As such, we must meet CMMC and FedRAMP compliance requirements.”
To maintain federal compliance, PPS was already operating with a Microsoft Government Community Cloud (GCC) tenant under the construction holding company. Once the organization was transitioned to BBI, PPS needed a partner who could provision a new GCC tenant and perform the migration to the new environment.
I found Arctic IT to be an effective and worthwhile partner on this project…I have had feedback from PPS leadership that this transition was a success and the smoothest of the three transitions that PPS has been through in the last four years.
Solution
PPS and BBI selected Arctic IT, a certified Microsoft Solutions Partner, for the project. To prepare for the migration, Arctic IT’s team of experts:
- Spun up the new GCC tenant for BBI.
- Created Intune device management policies.
- Staged applications for automated deployment.
- Enrolled devices into Windows Autopilot.
With the tenant provisioned, the team migrated PPS’s existing data from Exchange Online, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams to the new BBI tenant along with their vanity domain. In addition, all user workstations were reset and onboarded into the new tenant via Windows Autopilot.
Arctic IT helped prep PPS on the migration process and provided support throughout the transition to ensure it was seamless.
Results
With strong collaboration between PPS and Arctic IT, the GCC to GCC migration was a smooth operation. Irving commented, “This migration has had minimal impact on our organization’s operations as we migrated from one GCC tenant to another. We have had to rebuild certain profiles and rules, but the impact to users has been minimal.”
When asked about the experience in working with Arctic IT, Irving responded, “I found Arctic IT to be an effective and worthwhile partner on this project. Arctic IT was able to set out a plan for the migration and kept all project members aware of upcoming requirements and timeframes. Most importantly, Arctic IT was able to change the project timeline when it was needed. I have had feedback from PPS leadership that this transition was a success and the smoothest of the three transitions that PPS has been through in the last four years.”
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