Copying Data is Just Part of Your Migration Project

Most data migration vendors focus on moving data. Our experience shows us that there is so much more to a migration than that.

To be honest, some vendors do go beyond moving data, but they still typically only focus on:

1. Copying data from the source environment to the target environment
2. Tidying up the source environment

Many other vendors will only make a cursory attempt to fulfill the tasks relating to the second point.

At Cloudficient we believe that there is a lot more to your migration project than just copying the data. You need to do much more, including:

• Progress reporting - IT managers and business stakeholders in the migration project will need to know how the migration is progressing, and whether there have been any issues.
• User communication - Keeping users ‘in the loop’ is essential to ensure a smooth, successful migration project.
• Preparing to move the data repositories - If you’re moving legacy data from Enterprise Vault to Microsoft 365 some tasks should be performed to ensure a smooth transformation.
• Copying or moving the data repositories - This could be a primary mailbox, legacy archive, or both. It could be the whole repository or filtered on some attribute like the date of the item.
• Performing tasks in the target environment - For example, setting mailbox quotas, or message size limits, or enabling personal archive mailboxes, or assigning licenses. Those are just some examples, and most organizations have requirements in this area which is still part of the migration project.
• Performing tasks on the source environment - As an example: If you’ve migrated legacy archive data from something like Enterprise Vault, then there will most likely be shortcuts to tidy up in the mailbox.

Over the last few years, we’ve helped customers transition hundreds of Terabytes of data, and in that process, we’ve built a library of almost 200 tasks, only one of which is ‘moving the data’.

Let’s look at some of the additional tasks:

Automate Additional Tasks

If we take Enterprise Vault legacy archive migration we need to perform tasks in all of these areas:

It’s a similar story if you’re onboarding users into Microsoft 365, it’s not just a matter of moving the users’ mailbox from on-premise to the cloud.

In some organizations, these tasks might be performed manually, or via PowerShell scripts.

With Cloudficient’s EVComplete and Onboarding 365 Complete we do all of that, transparently, so that all stakeholders can be fully engaged and kept up to date.

Here’s a larger example detailing many of the steps that might be performed in a typical Enterprise Vault mailbox archive migration:

Wouldn’t it be great if every class of end-users went through the same set of automated steps and these steps were logged, repeatable, and fully audited?  

That’s what our ReMAD platform enables our solutions to do, so you don’t have to do these things manually and track them in an error-prone spreadsheet. The platform enables you to create and customize as many of these workflows as you need to meet your project requirements. Users, or groups of users, then go through all the steps in that workflow, in a fully audited and automated process.

And it’s not just legacy mailbox archive migrations that can go through a complete end-to-end workflow like this. Here is an example of a PST file migration workflow:

What about archives for people who have left the organization? They need processing as well if the goal is to eliminate the original source environment (for example Enterprise Vault, EMC SourceOne). Here’s a typical set of steps that such an archive can follow:

Reporting

With some older generations of archive migration solutions, it’s hard to produce consolidated reporting across the environment. Cloudficient has a single pane of glass where it’s easy to see the overall progress of the migration, as well as detailed information on the progress of individual users (or archives or PSTs, etc).

What’s more, we recommend performing a no-cost, no-commitment proof of concept, with your users and your data in your environment.

You’re now getting the idea it’s not just about copying the data. Don’t rely on testing, maintaining your own PowerShell scripts, and trying to keep track of everything via Excel! We’ve all done that before and it clearly has its pitfalls!

With unmatched next generation migration technology, Cloudficient is revolutionizing the way businesses retire legacy systems and transform their organization into the cloud. Our business constantly remains focused on client needs and creating product offerings that match them. We provide affordable services that are scalable, fast, and seamless. 

If you would like to learn more about how to bring Cloudficiency to your migration project, visit our website, or contact us.