Selecting Between Free and Paid Migration Instruments

Microsoft lately determined to cease providing its free answer 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 seemingly trying to perceive tips on how to choose one of the best migration instrument for his or her group. With a variety of free and paid options in the marketplace, there are a number of necessary elements IT leaders ought to think about when evaluating migration instruments.

Total Consumer Friendliness

The outdated saying “you get what you pay for” positively applies to the panorama of free and paid information and mailbox migration instruments.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

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

Standing and Error Reporting

Any IT chief who has carried out a migration is aware of that the method will nearly by no means be completely error-free. IT groups ought to count on that issues will come up through 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 crucial information and data is crucial to a easy 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 might not be accessible in free alternate options.

Configuration and Execution

Configuring a migration instrument 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 also help organizations evaluate and distinction totally different first- or third-party options. Conducting a proof-of-concept with a small take a look at group is an effective way to search out out the efficiency and configuration time wanted to finish the migration at scale. Utilizing this testing strategy, the group can evaluate free and paid instruments to gauge setup and efficiency metrics earlier than committing to 1 instrument or one other.

Scalability

The time it takes to finish a migration relies upon on the kind and measurement of knowledge that must be moved, together with different elements corresponding to accessible bandwidth, throttling and vacation spot surroundings. Free options could be the precise alternative for smaller, easy migrations that don’t have to deal with a considerable amount of information—normally within the 100-200 seat vary. Advanced or data-heavy migrations will seemingly be dealt with extra successfully and effectively with a paid instrument since they’re able to scaling to maintain 1000’s of customers and migrate information from a number of customers without delay.

Free instruments are additionally not outfitted to permit a custom-made migration strategy, corresponding to a pre-stage migration. Utilizing a pre-staging strategy emigrate mailboxes is likely one of the most typical strategies of dealing with e-mail migrations. With pre-staging, a lot of the person information is migrated behind the scenes earlier than the MX file cutover. Pre-staging frees up the bandwidth wanted through the time of cutover and reduces downtime throughout bigger migration tasks. Since first-party options could not help this feature, they won’t be the precise alternative for large-scale migrations.

Whole Price

Free migration options can really feel like a win for the underside line, nevertheless it’s necessary to be conscious of the chance price of the IT group’s time within the whole price equation. If a free instrument is used for a extra complicated migration, the method might take important time to finish and would possibly require deeper troubleshooting if errors happen and IT employees have to dig deep to diagnose the difficulty.

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 instrument. Trying past the surface-level prices of free versus paid instruments can reveal hidden prices and hassles that make first-party choices extra hassle than they’re value.

Vendor Help

Having the precise help all through the migration course of could make or break the challenge’s success—and ranges of help range broadly 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 incorrect, having strong help accessible is crucial to getting again on observe.

One subject with utilizing a first-party migration instrument is that you simply’re tied to a behemoth vendor for assist together with your distinctive migration. Because the vendor is offering a free instrument, they aren’t going to supply complete help that you simply’d get with a paid choice. On high of help limitations, on-line documentation and coaching assets with first-party distributors are sometimes lower than strong too, leaving you with restricted choices for getting the crucial allow you to want.

Free migration instruments don’t have to be averted altogether, however they most likely received’t meet the wants of each group or migration challenge. As IT leaders and MSPs start purchasing for migration options, they need to fastidiously think about the scale and scope of their challenge and weigh the professionals and cons of selecting a first-party instrument or whether or not a extra resource-rich third-party choice will go well with their wants greatest. With the precise migration answer, organizations will save time, cash, assets and entry the reporting and help that would make all of the distinction.

By Stacey Farrar