Microsoft lately determined to cease providing its free resolution for dealing with tenant-to-tenant migrations. Now, customers should buy a $12 license for each mailbox if both of the tenants has an Enterprise Settlement.

Following this coverage replace, in-house IT groups and managed service suppliers are doubtless seeking to perceive tips on how to choose the perfect migration software for his or her group. With a variety of free and paid options in the marketplace, there are a number of essential elements IT leaders ought to take into account when evaluating migration instruments.

Total Person Friendliness

The outdated saying “you get what you pay for” positively applies to the panorama of free and paid knowledge and mailbox migration instruments. Free options typically lack enhanced interfaces and superior automation options that their paid counterparts embrace. Against this, paid companies are likely to have a extra developed person expertise that makes utilizing the software extra intuitive and accessible, with considerate enhancements that may guarantee the method is seamless and fewer time-intensive.

Whereas person expertise may not at all times be top-of-mind as IT employees are contemplating totally different migration options, it’s value noting {that a} software’s ease of use can influence how shortly an IT skilled grasps the answer’s performance and makes the many of the resolution’s capabilities.

Standing and Error Reporting

Any IT chief who has performed a migration is aware of that the method will virtually by no means be completely error-free. IT groups ought to anticipate that issues will come up in the course of the course of. When a migration throws an error, you want dependable and exact reporting to find out the supply of the issue with out having to do a lot digging. Speedy entry to vital knowledge and data is crucial to a clean and seamless migration that retains the migration on schedule.

The power to slender down a difficulty to the person merchandise stage (particularly when dealing with excessive person counts or environments with strict compliance necessities) is often included in third-party migration options, however will not be obtainable in free options.

Configuration and Execution

Configuring a migration software is only one a part of the general course of. Understanding the legwork concerned within the setup and execution time of free versus paid instruments may help organizations examine and distinction totally different first- or third-party options. Conducting a proof-of-concept with a small check group is an effective way to seek out out the efficiency and configuration time wanted to finish the migration at scale. Utilizing this testing strategy, the crew can examine free and paid instruments to gauge setup and efficiency metrics earlier than committing to 1 software or one other.

Scalability

The time it takes to finish a migration relies upon on the sort and dimension of information that must be moved, together with different elements corresponding to obtainable bandwidth, throttling and vacation spot surroundings. Free options may be the suitable alternative for smaller, simple migrations that don’t must deal with a considerable amount of knowledge—often within the 100-200 seat vary. Complicated or data-heavy migrations will doubtless be dealt with extra successfully and effectively with a paid software since they’re able to scaling to maintain 1000’s of customers and migrate knowledge from a number of customers directly.

Free instruments are additionally not outfitted to permit a personalized migration strategy, corresponding to a pre-stage migration. Utilizing a pre-staging strategy emigrate mailboxes is without doubt one of the most typical strategies of dealing with e-mail migrations. With pre-staging, many of the person knowledge is migrated behind the scenes earlier than the MX file cutover. Pre-staging frees up the bandwidth wanted in the course of the time of cutover and reduces downtime throughout bigger migration initiatives. Since first-party options could not help this selection, they may not be the suitable alternative for large-scale migrations.

Complete Price

Free migration options can really feel like a win for the underside line, but it surely’s essential to be conscious of the chance value of the IT crew’s time within the whole value equation. If a free software is used for a extra complicated migration, the method may take vital time to finish and would possibly require deeper troubleshooting if errors happen and IT employees must dig deep to diagnose the problem.

Whereas the answer itself could not include a price ticket, there could also be licensing, {hardware}, and engineering prices that find yourself consuming into the cash “saved” with a free software. Wanting past the surface-level prices of free versus paid instruments can reveal hidden prices and hassles that make first-party choices extra bother than they’re value.

Vendor Help

Having the suitable help all through the migration course of could make or break the undertaking’s success—and ranges of help range extensively between free and paid migration instruments. Most errors that come up throughout a migration are comparatively innocuous and simple to unravel. Within the occasion that one thing goes actually fallacious, having strong help obtainable is crucial to getting again on observe.

One situation with utilizing a first-party migration software is that you simply’re tied to a behemoth vendor for assist together with your distinctive migration. For the reason that vendor is offering a free software, they aren’t going to supply complete help that you simply’d get with a paid possibility. On prime of help limitations, on-line documentation and coaching sources with first-party distributors are sometimes lower than strong too, leaving you with restricted choices for getting the vital assist you want.

Free migration instruments don’t must be averted altogether, however they most likely received’t meet the wants of each group or migration undertaking. As IT leaders and MSPs start looking for migration options, they need to rigorously take into account the dimensions and scope of their undertaking and weigh the professionals and cons of selecting a first-party software or whether or not a extra resource-rich third-party possibility will go well with their wants greatest. With the suitable migration resolution, organizations will save time, cash, sources and entry the reporting and help that would make all of the distinction.

By Stacey Farrar