The migration process has been decided. Now we need the right tools to carry it out. There is a wide range of providers and solutions, but as always, it comes down to the details:

• Which services should be migrated?
• What is the scope of the migration, and how quickly does the data need to be migrated?
• Can employees be expected to accept restrictions or fulfill certain obligations?

This article provides an overview of some solutions I’ve encountered in my projects. Accordingly, the article should not be viewed as a complete list of all available solutions and their respective features, as that would simply be beyond the scope of this article.

Overview and comparison

This article discusses the following solutions:

• AvePoint Fly (Fly)
• Microsoft Migration Orchestrator (MORCH)
• Quest On Demand Migration (ODM)
• ShareGate Migrate

Since migration solutions are constantly evolving and new features are continually being implemented in the Microsoft Cloud, the information provided here may not reflect the current state of affairs. However, I strive to keep the content as up-to-date as possible. All prices are approximate and may vary in practice (e.g., due to framework agreements, interim price increases, etc.).

The following table provides a brief comparison of the products. Details on the individual points are described in the following chapters.

AvePoint Fly

About the provider

AvePoint is headquartered in the United States. It offers a wide range of products for managing cloud services, such as data backup, governance, archiving, and much more. Its product suite covers Microsoft, Google, and Salesforce. AvePoint has become best known for its cloud-based data backup solution, AvePoint Cloud Backup for Microsoft 365, and is continuously expanding its product portfolio with the Confidence Platform. The services are offered not only from the U.S. but also in nearly all regions where these providers operate (including Germany, for example).

About the product

AvePoint Fly provides a cloud-based platform for migrating content between Microsoft tenants. The following products and resources can be migrated:

• Entra ID users and security groups
• Exchange Online mailboxes and public folders
• Teams (1-on-1 chats, group chats, channels, and data)
• SharePoint Online sites
• OneDrive sites
• Power Platform apps and flows

In addition, AvePoint offers the “AvePoint Fly Server” solution, which enables the migration of on-premises Exchange organizations and SharePoint farms to Microsoft 365. This allows these systems to be migrated in parallel as part of the migration process.

Licensing

AvePoint Fly uses what is known as “Global Object” licensing. Under this model, each object to be migrated is licensed separately. The license includes an unlimited amount of data, so it doesn't matter whether an object takes up, for example, 10 GB, 100 GB, or 1 TB. However, licensing distinguishes between the following areas, meaning that users must be licensed multiple times (currently up to 4 licenses):

• User-related areas:
  • Entra ID user
  • Exchange Online mailbox
  • Personal Teams chats
  • OneDrive site
• Entra ID security group
• Teams room
• SharePoint site
• Microsoft 365 group
• Public folder in Exchange Online

For Power Platform, one license is required per app or flow.

All licenses are purchased for at least one year, regardless of how long the migration takes. If the migration takes longer than one year, licenses must be purchased again for at least one year.

Specialties

AvePoint Fly enables the migration of apps and flows from the Power Platform. While this is a nice addition in itself, the necessary prerequisites (setting up an environment in the target tenant, configuring permissions) must be performed manually. Furthermore, apps and flows are rarely ready to run immediately after migration, as dependencies are missing or file paths are no longer correct.

Consequently, follow-up work must be performed as part of the preparatory steps or, at the latest, after the migration. For highly complex apps and flows, however, this can make sense, as it avoids having to rebuild them from scratch and instead allows you to adapt only the non-functional components to the new environment.

The “AvePoint Fly Server” product can be used to migrate data from locally deployed productivity servers (Exchange Server, SharePoint Server). Consequently, migrations from an on-premises environment can be performed either in parallel with the cloud migration or before or after it.

Performance

The following information is based on observations from completed projects and depends on various factors (e.g., bandwidth, individual throttling by Microsoft, batch sizes, etc.). It is intended only to give an idea of what is theoretically possible and when data synchronization should begin at the latest:

Microsoft Migration Orchestrator

About the provider

Microsoft is headquartered in the United States. As the developer and operator of Microsoft 365, Microsoft has the most experience working with its own products. In addition to Microsoft 365 and Azure as cloud offerings, many products are still available for on-premises data centers. The cloud services are provided worldwide, including from data centers in Europe and Germany.

About the product

Microsoft Migration Orchestrator is a solution natively integrated with the Microsoft Cloud for migrating data between Microsoft 365 environments. Currently, the following products and resources can be migrated:

• Exchange mailboxes
• OneDrive sites
• Personal Teams chats

Teams rooms and channels, as well as SharePoint sites, cannot yet be officially migrated. This feature is currently reserved for customers with an Enterprise Agreement.

Licensing

The following licenses are available for migration:

• Cross-Tenant User Data Migration = addon per user
• Cross-Tenant Shared Data Migration = per 100 GB data (SharePoint sites and Teams rooms; currently available only to Enterprise Agreement customers)

These can be purchased directly from Microsoft or through a cloud service provider.

Specialties

Since Microsoft transfers the data via its backend network, the synchronization speed is significantly higher than with third-party solutions, which must first transfer the data out of the cloud and then back into the cloud. This can be particularly helpful for short-term projects or when dealing with large amounts of data.

Personal Teams chats are migrated unchanged. This is a major advantage over third-party solutions, as they must first convert personal chats into group chats in order to migrate them. This is because Microsoft has not yet provided an official API for migrating such chats. Typically, with third-party solutions, 1-on-1 chats are either not migrated at all or only migrated up to a certain cutoff date, as they are difficult to distinguish in the new environment.

Unlike Exchange Online mailboxes, OneDrive migrations do not support delta synchronization. Once the migration is started, it is completed immediately upon full migration. Additionally, a maximum of 2,000 users can be migrated within a single migration batch.

Performance

Unfortunately, no precise information on the expected speed is available at this time.

Quest On Demand Migration

About the provider

Quest is headquartered in the United States and is a subsidiary of Dell. Quest is best known for its management and migration solutions for traditional infrastructure services such as Active Directory and now offers numerous other solutions for data security, cybersecurity, and migration. Its services are also available in data centers in Europe and Germany, among other locations.

About the product

Quest On Demand Migration is a comprehensive solution for migrating on-premises systems to the cloud, as well as from one cloud to another. Currently, the following services and resources can be migrated:

• Entra ID users, devices, and security groups
• Exchange Online mailboxes and public folders
• Teams (1:1 chats, group chats, channels, and data)
• SharePoint Online sites
• OneDrive sites
• Power BI content
• Power Platform environments

Quest provides dedicated solutions for on-premises productivity servers (Exchange Server, SharePoint Server). Accordingly, migrations from an on-premises environment can be performed either in parallel with the cloud migration or as a pre- or post-migration step.

Licensing

Quest offers different migration packages depending on the required feature set:

• On Demand Migration T3 for cloud-to-cloud migrations—includes users, groups, and M365 services
• On Demand Migration T5 for hybrid migrations—same as T3 plus Active Directory and device migrations
• On Demand Migration T7 for long-term migrations—includes everything in T5 plus features for email domain rewriting and domain migration

In addition, the following add-ons are available:

• Microsoft Teams Chat addon for 1:1 chats
• Hybrid Exchange for Exchange organizations on-premises

Specialties

Quest ODM can be used to migrate both Power BI content and complete Power Platform environments. The latter, in particular, is a significant advantage when Power Platform is used extensively within an organization. Quest also handles the creation of the environment itself, which greatly reduces the workload. However, dependencies from the legacy environment cannot be automatically resolved, so manual follow-up work is still required in these cases.

Another key advantage over other solutions is the Quest Update Agent. This enables automated reconfiguration of Office apps on end devices, so users do not have to update them manually. The agent can be managed centrally via the ODM console.

Furthermore, device migration is a very useful feature. Otherwise, devices must be manually removed from the old directory service and integrated into the new one—a process that is error-prone and often cannot be performed by users via self-service, as it requires local administrator rights. However, the license for this feature is quite expensive, so you’ll need to weigh whether it’s worth the investment for your company.

Performance

The following information is based on observations from completed projects and depends on various factors (e.g., bandwidth, individual throttling by Microsoft, batch sizes, etc.). It is intended only to give an idea of what is theoretically possible and when data synchronization should begin at the latest:

In past migration projects, it has been observed that Quest ODM experiences performance issues when migrating Teams rooms and Exchange mailboxes that contain a large number of items per folder. The final synchronization, in particular, takes an unusually long time, preventing users from accessing the latest items.

ShareGate Migrate

About the provider

ShareGate is headquartered in Canada. From its original focus on software services for SharePoint, it has since evolved into a provider of automation, governance, and migration solutions for Microsoft 365. For its cloud-based offerings, the company uses Microsoft data centers in regions around the world, including Europe.

About the product

ShareGate Migrate is the solution for migrating Microsoft 365 data between cloud environments. It currently supports the migration of the following services and resources:

• Entra ID users and security groups
• Exchange Online mailboxes (but not Public Folders)
• Teams (group chats, channels, and data, but not 1-on-1 chats)
• SharePoint Online sites
• OneDrive sites
• Purview

ShareGate provides dedicated modules for on-premises productivity servers (Exchange Server, SharePoint Server). Accordingly, migrations from an on-premises environment can be performed either in parallel with the cloud migration or as a pre- or post-migration step.

Licensing

ShareGate offers various packages tailored to migration performance requirements. Accordingly, all packages include unlimited resources and data (so it doesn’t matter how many users or how much data needs to be migrated).

• Essentials: a single migration, up to 250 users; includes SharePoint, Teams, Planner, OneDrive, and file shares
• Pro: five concurrent migrations, up to 1,000 users; includes all supported products
• Enterprise: 25 concurrent migrations, 1,000 or more users; includes all supported products

Specialties

Share Migrate is not a cloud-based service. Instead, the software must be installed on one or more workstations, from which the migration(s) are then initiated. Accordingly, the licensing model is significantly different from that of other solutions, which operate on a per-user basis.

Furthermore, ShareGate has some limitations—for example, it cannot be used to migrate public folders in Exchange Online. However, this seems manageable in most cases, as best practices recommend using shared mailboxes as an alternative anyway. The limitation regarding Teams 1:1 chats, however, can be more significant if these are to be migrated. In that case, an additional solution would need to be purchased or a switch to a different solution would be required.

For very large data volumes (TB), ShareGate offers what’s known as “Insane Mode.” In this mode, data is temporarily stored in an Azure region and imported into the new environment via the Microsoft 365 Import API to significantly accelerate the transfer to the new environment. This can help circumvent or mitigate limitations imposed by the workstation (hardware, bandwidth, etc.).

Another unique feature is the ability to migrate Purview solutions. Purview implementations, in particular, can become very complex over time, making it difficult to rebuild them in a different environment. Additionally, the transfer of d

Performance

The speed depends heavily on the specifications of the workstations used to perform the migration. Infrastructure components, such as switches, firewalls, and Internet bandwidth, must also be taken into account. Accordingly, it is not possible to make a reliable statement about the solution’s general speed.

However, with “Insane Mode,” ShareGate offers a way to significantly speed up the process. This should be considered especially when very large amounts of data need to be transferred or the migration timeframe is very short.

General recommendations

The following chapters provide some additional recommendations for carrying out the migration, regardless of the solution used.

Start early!

A common mistake is to start data synchronization only shortly before the migration or even on the migration date itself—for example, due to cost considerations regarding the licensing of the migration solution. This can result in users not having access to the most current data after the migration date, thereby delaying business processes.

Since most providers offer their products on an annual basis, cost considerations play a minor role here. Accordingly, licenses can be procured early on and the solution can be set up. It is also possible to perform an initial data synchronization early on to make the majority of the data available in the new environment.

The closer the migration date gets, the more frequently delta synchronizations should be performed. This minimizes the amount of data required for the final synchronization as part of the migration. However, for larger migrations (e.g., 1,000+ users), the final synchronization may still take a considerable amount of time. Therefore, even in a phased migration process, individual packages should not be too large.

When using Microsoft Migration Orchestrator, it is also important to note that delta synchronizations are currently not possible for individual services (OneDrive). This also affects the migration process.

Follow the migration sequence!

In principle, the data and resources of the individual services can be migrated independently of one another. However, during the migration process, this can result in dependencies that cannot be resolved. This, in turn, can lead to participants being missing from Teams chats or meetings, access to shared files and folders no longer working, and so on.

For this reason, a specific order should be followed for the initial synchronization to avoid such problems. This is particularly important when using the Microsoft Migration Orchestrator, since some services do not support delta synchronization (e.g., OneDrive).

The very first step is to establish a clean mapping of resources between the old and new environments. This primarily concerns user accounts and groups (security and distribution). This enables the migration solution to resolve dependencies properly and thus map resources as closely as possible to their original state.

For the initial synchronization, the following order should be used:

Suspend EWS throttling and plan appropriate batch sizes!

Mailbox migrations still represent a bottleneck due to various factors:

• Many small items—as is common in mailboxes—significantly slow down data transfer.
• Microsoft severely throttles connections to Exchange Online via the EWS protocol (while this limit can be increased through the Admin Center, it only results in a marginal improvement).
• Mailbox folders officially support a maximum of 5,000 items. However, some users store a very large number of items in individual folders, which further slows down the migration.

Even though temporarily suspending the EWS throttling provides only a small benefit, it should still be done. This at least ensures that Microsoft does not activate any further throttling measures that could further slow down the migration. However, it’s important to note that the throttling can be suspended for a maximum of 90 days. After that, it must be reconfigured. This can easily be overlooked, especially during longer migration periods, and must therefore be scheduled as a regular task.

Furthermore, for larger migrations (500 or more mailboxes), you should not synchronize all mailboxes at once, as throttling may occur again. Microsoft itself recommends observing the following limits (when using the Migration Orchestrator):

• 2,000 mailboxes per migration batch
• A maximum of 300 concurrent migrations
• A maximum of 100 concurrent batches

If other solutions are used, the manufacturer's respective limits and recommendations should be followed.

Be sure to observe the restrictions associated with confidentiality classifications!

Information protection labels in Exchange Online or Purview confidentiality labels may be used in the current environment. If these need to be transferred, the migration solution should support this accordingly. Therefore, close attention must be paid to

• whether the migration solution actually supports the migration of labels or whether only labels available in the target environment can be applied,
• what preparatory or post-migration tasks are required for the migration (e.g., due to overlapping designators),
• and whether Microsoft Support must be consulted for the transfer of the tenant key.

This last point, in particular, is essential for determining the potential migration date, since Microsoft Support has stated that it takes approximately 4 months to complete the transfer. However, because Microsoft Support is not allowed to open and keep tickets open much further in advance, this also serves as a strict deadline for the transfer.

If it makes sense, combine products!

The table and the detailed explanations that follow make one thing clear: there is currently no solution that can fully meet all the requirements of a Microsoft 365 migration. Accordingly, there are two possible approaches to addressing this:

• Accept the limitations that arise when choosing a specific solution and, where possible, develop workarounds.
• Combine multiple solutions and leverage the respective strengths of each.

With the second approach, however, it’s important to note that implementing an additional solution will incur significant extra costs. Unfortunately, with most providers, individual features are not available as add-ons but only as part of the full license.

Accordingly, it is important to weigh whether the use of an additional solution and the associated costs outweigh the benefits, or whether it should be considered more of a “nice-to-have” rather than a necessity.

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