BEST METHODS TO MIGRATE A BUSINESS FROM EXISTING EXCHANGE TO OFFICE 365 www.sbasetech.net
Migrating a business from conventional system to Microsoft office 365 involves a list of factors to be considered. It may involve the amount of data need to be moved, the versions of exchange server and range of objects involved in the migration. These are the critical factors that may get effect while migrating the business. So, before initiating the migration process, it is necessary to do thorough analysis on the business requirement. There are various methods available for migrating a business from conventional system to Office 365. It is necessary to understand the scope and issues of each method before migrating the business else it may off track the complete business. A business can move to office 365 with the help of any one of the following migration method.
CUTOVER MIGRATION : This method is considered the best method for organizations with less than 2000 mailboxes. It is the simplest and easiest method to migrate all mailboxes, contacts, mail groups and users in one shot. Most importantly, the cutover method is suitable for the businesses running Exchange 2003, Exchange 2007, Exchange 2010 or Exchange 2013. But, major disadvantage of cut over migration is that the process may take too many days to complete the process. So it makes sense to use staged migration if the organization needs the migration process to complete in stages.
STAGED MIGRATION: It is another migration method available for small organization to migrate their business to office 365. This method is more suitable for organizations with less than 2000 mailboxes and wants to migrate the mailboxes in stages. This method is best for the organizations running Exchange servers such as 2003 or 2007. With staged migration, there will be a little disruption of services because users no more emails received at older exchange email server. If the business runs later versions of Exchange server such as 2010 or 2013 then it is good to use hybrid migration method.
HYBRID MIGRATION: This type of migration is used when organizations need to maintain both on-premise and online mailboxes at a time while migration process is in progress. Hybrid migration is capable of migrating over 2000 mailboxes that make hybrid migration more suitable method for organizations with more mailboxes, users and contacts. Moreover, it is also a suitable method for organizations running Exchange 2010 and 2013 server. To the downside, it involves numerous strategic decisions to be taken by administrators such as which mailboxes should remain on-premise or online.
IMAP OR THIRD PARTY MIGRATION: Finally, for businesses running non-exchange email server, the most suitable method for migration is IMAP. This method can easily migrate mailboxes to Office 365. You can also use third party migration tool to migrate the resources to office 365.