In a dynamic business environment where a remote workforce remains the norm, the demand for collaborative work solutions still ranks high in operational priorities. Small and medium businesses today are seeking out Microsoft 365 migration, as it brings about smart and secure work while ensuring that their entire workforce stays connected. Microsoft 365 or Office 365 is popular, as it empowers businesses to build a flexible environment that sits on a cloud platform accommodating both present and future requirements of a business. Microsoft 365 offers subscription-based access (including access via the cloud) to popular Microsoft applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher, Access, Skype, and SkyDrive.
What is Microsoft 365 migration?
Moving workflows and data from a given environment, say from on-premises or any other cloud platform, to a Microsoft 365 tenant is called migration. Let us remind ourselves that artificial intelligence (AI) has become a cornerstone of digital transformation; Microsoft was one of the forerunners in integrating AI into all its applications, thus enhancing the performance of productivity tools like Word, Excel, and Outlook. AI-driven features like predictive text, grammar corrections, and data insights have made the migration to Microsoft 365 particularly useful for small and medium-sized businesses.
Migration to Microsoft 365 requires careful planning, strategising and execution, preferably with the right Microsoft 365 migration tools and a reliable partner. This plays a critical role in enabling organisations to stick to the objective of Microsoft 365 migration: collaboration, security and scalability at a reduced cost.
Understanding Microsoft 365 Migration types:
Various approaches can be adopted to migrate into a Microsoft 365 environment. These are influenced by factors such as business context, technical requirements and source environment of data. Let us define some scenarios that exist usually when businesses plan to migrate: an existing tenant, on-premises or hybrid infrastructure or some other third-party platform. Let us quickly discuss these scenarios:
Migration from an on-premises environment to Microsoft 365:
This is prevalent among business organisations shifting from on-premises Exchange, SharePoint, file servers or other identity management systems to Microsoft’s cloud-based services. The level of difficulty here will vary based on the workload, data volume and complexity of integrations with legacy applications.
Tenant-to-tenant migration:
This is more common with merger and acquisition rebranding activities that involve two or more businesses with a cloud environment. These migration projects encompass workloads like Entra ID (users, groups and devices), Exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams, Power BI and on-premises Active Directory. This also depends on the multi-capabilities of the source or target tenant or if it is present in Microsoft’s Government Community Cloud (GCC), Government Community Cloud High (GCC High) or Department of Defence (DoD) environments. In this case, additional considerations need to be checked.
Hybrid Migration:
Most organisations may not be ready to completely move to Microsoft 365 due to certain on-premises dependencies, compliance requirements or application integrations that still demand an on-premises infrastructure. This type of migration still enables such businesses to leverage cloud benefits without the need to fully move away from their on-premises setup, ensuring business continuity. Hybrid setups are common in most large enterprises, government companies and some industries with strict data storage requirements and regulatory constraints, and others with some significant legacy dependencies.
Migrating from a third-party platform:
This kind of migration is very common during digital transformation efforts, mergers and acquisitions again, or maybe with the management seriously considering cost optimisation efforts and security and compliance enhancements.
Technical considerations to be checked before migrating to Microsoft 365:
Migrating to Microsoft 365 involves complex technical elements that can vary depending on data types, source systems, and specific organisational attributes. Here’s an overview of the primary workloads and migration aspects that require attention.
- Domain migration:
This is a fundamental step in most Microsoft 365 projects. Now again, if a business chooses a completely new domain for its email, this phase can get skipped. Domains cannot be active across multiple tenants at once. During phased migrations (which involve migrating data in stages or phases rather than all at once), it is common practice to use a temporary domain for staging accounts. However, this process is subject to delays due to DNS propagation, synchronisation issues, mail routing problems, or several other external integrations tied to the original domain. Seeking proactive support with Microsoft is advised to prepare for any complications.
- Identity and device migration:
A crucial component of migrating to Microsoft 365 is handling Entra ID (or Azure AD). This involves migrating user accounts, security groups, and distribution lists to maintain the integrity of the identity. Further, devices enrolled in corporate management must transition in a way that secures their identities, policies, and conditional access controls, ensuring compliance continues without interruption. Device migration strategy depends on whether they are managed via Intune, Group Policy, or third-party solutions. Once again, the choice of migration and chosen identity model cloud-only, hybrid, or federated will also play a role in the authentication processes and policy retention.
- Mailbox migration:
Moving email data is the heart and soul of most migrations, but other data like contacts, tasks, and calendars are also a part of it as well. The right approach to email migration depends on the size and number of mailboxes as well as the email system in use.
- Tenant-to-tenant mailbox migrations are usually handled with third-party tools, though Microsoft has previewed some native tools that may be risky for production.
- On-premises Exchange migrations leverage hybrid, staged, or cutover (all users and data are moved from the source environment to Microsoft 365 in a single go) methods, though older versions may require third-party guidance.
- IMAP migrations transfer only emails, which is suitable for older or less advanced systems, and may need Large Archive Onboarding for mailboxes with a capacity over 100 GB.
- OneDrive and SharePoint migration:
File migrations are typically split between personal and shared data. User files from desktops or personal drives are redirected to OneDrive, while shared or departmental data move to SharePoint. Microsoft tools like Migration Manager, Known Folder Move, or third-party solutions help map data to the designated locations. In the case of tenant-to-tenant scenarios, OneDrive and SharePoint files must be mapped to maintain permissions and structures. SharePoint migrations, particularly from on-premises environments, require extra care on the site architecture, metadata, workflows, and customisations.
- Teams migration:
Teams migration involves moving chat history, channels, membership, and integrated file content. Due to dependencies between Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, and Exchange, planning is imperative to preserve functionality. Here, third-party tools are best suited to move data from Teams, especially when private channels or Planner tasks are included. For organisations shifting from other collaboration platforms to Teams, migrations typically involve exporting data from the source and importing it into Teams with scripts or migration tools. Do note that some elements, like certain metadata, might not fully transfer.
Why Kloudify:
Regardless of the source environment, a detailed understanding of migration types involves recognising all details about business size, data volume, environment complexity and business continuity requirements. For a smooth delivery, it is important to provide proper training, communication, and support services to the users as well as M365 administrators. Migrating to Microsoft 365 can be a cakewalk, provided you partner with the right service provider. Talk to us!
