A Guide to Successful Email Migration and Office 365 Migration Types

In order to take advantage of cloud computing, more and more businesses are switching to Office 365 for its cloud-based collaboration and productivity features.

However, migrating systems can be frustrating as you attempt to navigate new and old platforms. It could create confusion if you suddenly tell your employees to change email systems, and you need to make sure your data is secure during the transition. Moreover, Migrations can take several weeks or even several months.

If you decide to migrate to Office 365, there are several options to consider. To help you decide which type of migration is best for your business, we’ll explore the different Office 365 migration types in this blog.

Things to consider before migrating to Office 365

When it’s time to choose between Office 365 migration types, there are a couple of questions you need to ask yourself, such as:

How long will it take to migrate?
What is your migration budget?
Is there a lot of data to migrate?
What is your current email system?
What version of Exchange Server do you use?
What is the size of Your organization?
What are the additional tasks that need to be completed during the cloud migration?

If you have answered these questions, you can set up an analysis to determine which migration type is right for your organization.

Office 365 Migration Types

1. Staged Migration

The staged migration moves everything over in batches. It migrates your resource mailboxes and existing users from Exchange 2003 or 2007 to Exchange Online.

The method is ideal for medium-sized businesses (especially those with over 2,000 mailboxes) who are currently using Microsoft Exchange 2003 or 2007. Unfortunately,
You can’t migrate Exchange 2013 or Exchange 2010 mailboxes to Microsoft 365 or Office 365 through a staged migration.

Mailboxes are migrated in batches over a designated time period. It requires the use of the Directory Synchronization tool, which replicates your accounts from the Active Directory database on-premises. After the process is complete, all mailboxes will be hosted in Office 365.

During the migration, Office 365 users will still be able to send and receive emails from users who have not yet migrated. Only calendars and delegates will not be accessible by users.

You can find more information about staged migrations here.

2. Cutover / Express Migration

In a Cutover migration, Office 365 is immediately replaced with an on-premises Exchange system. Your mailboxes, contacts, and distribution groups are all migrated at once. With this migration, it is not possible to select specific objects to migrate, and after the move, all users will have an Office 365 account.

If you are currently using Exchange 2003, 2007, 2010, or 2013 and have less than 2,000 mailboxes, you should use this method to migrate to Office 365. Microsoft recommends the cutover migration for companies with fewer than 150 users because of the time it takes to migrate so many accounts.

One important thing to note is that each user’s Outlook profile must be reconfigured in order to access Office 365.

You can find more information about staged migrations here.

3. Hybrid Migration

Hybrid migration is the third method of migrating on-premises email infrastructure into Office 365. Although this form of migration is the most complicated and most expensive type, it offers huge benefits over the other forms of migration.

The Office 365 hybrid migration allows you to integrate Office 365 with your on-premises Exchange servers and your existing directory services. As a result, you can synchronize and manage user accounts for both environments.

In a hybrid migration, you can move mailboxes in and out of Exchange Online. You can even decide which mailboxes to move to Office 365 and which to keep on-premises. Additionally, you can synchronize passwords and enable single sign-on for your team to make it easier for them to log in to both environments.

In order to use a hybrid migration, you need more than 2,000 mailboxes. Furthermore, Exchange 2010 or later is required. If you do not have this server installed, you will need to install a Microsoft Exchange 2013 or Microsoft Exchange 2010 Service Pack 3 (SP3) server to enable hybrid deployment connectivity.

You can find more information about staged migrations here.

4. IMAP Migration ( Internet Message Access Protocol)

In contrast to the other three migration types, IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) allows users to migrate from Gmail or any other email system that supports IMAP.

IMAP migrations pull data from your source mailboxes and move it into Office 365. However, IMAP migration only transfers emails. Items such as calendar items, tasks, and contacts are left in the original inbox and must be migrated manually by the user.

Additionally, you’ll need to create a mailbox for each user before you begin the email migration – something other migration types automatically do for you.

You can find more information about staged migrations here.

Get expert Office 365 consulting and migration support from CAD Gulf

In this blog, we have discussed the major routes to migrate your on-premises email infrastructure to Office 365, and have also given some tips for a successful migration. In our experience, no two Office 365 migrations are the same. However, as a team with 30+ years of experience, we believe we can meet the requirements of any organization.

As the industry’s leading next-generation office 365 migration partner, CAD Gulf transforms the way businesses retire legacy systems and migrate to the cloud. We also offer better discounts on Microsoft 365 pricing. As a company, we focus constantly on matching client needs with the right products. Our services are scalable, fast, and seamless.

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