In our last post, we began discussing the process for selecting an enterprise file-sharing platform and developing a strategy for migrating data. We examined the benefits and use cases of Microsoft OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online, as well as on-premises SharePoint 2016 deployments. We also explained how automated tools can help you analyze your file shares, ensure your data is optimized for the cloud and troubleshoot any issues that arise.
Once the assessment is complete, you’ll understand the total size of the file shares to be transferred. Let’s say that you end up with 500TB of data that can and should be migrated. How do you go about moving that much data to the Microsoft cloud?
Data migration projects are extremely challenging, particularly when they involve large volumes of content. Organizations are often tempted to move all of the data in one go, usually over a weekend or holiday. This places intense pressure on IT teams to complete the migration in the allotted time frame to minimize system downtime.
However, it increases the risk that a problem will occur resulting in data loss or corruption.
A better approach is to move the data in phases while running the source and target systems in parallel. This minimizes downtime but increases the complexity of the migration. Users must switch back and forth between old and new systems depending upon the location of the information they need. Any data that is modified in source systems after migration must be updated in target systems accordingly.
Migrating data to the cloud comes with additional challenges. The time required for migration will depend upon the available network bandwidth between your data center and the cloud provider, as well as the number of files and the complexity of permissions and metadata.
When migrating data to Office 365, you are also dependent upon the Client Side Object Mode (CSOM) programming interface, which must be used to facilitate the migration. Microsoft imposes limitations throttling the number of CSOM calls you can initiate within a given time frame so that SLAs for other users aren’t impacted.
The process of moving on-premises file shares and user data to OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online can be simplified with Microsoft’s SharePoint Online Migration API. Introduced in 2015, the API integrates with Microsoft Azure to minimize the number of CSOM calls required to complete the migration. A migration package is created that includes the content to be uploaded as well as an XML-based manifest file that provides directions for the migration. The package is uploaded into Azure storage and structured into Azure BLOB Containers so that it can be transferred quickly in batches.
AvePoint’s DocAve High Speed Migration tool takes advantage of the API to not only move data at high speed but ensure data fidelity. The software breaks up your content into multiple packages, each with its own manifest file. It also builds the Office 365 site based upon the data packages and manifest files. This ensure that your content is accurately reassembled and mapped when ingested into SharePoint Online or OneDrive for Business.
AdaptivEdge has extensive experience leveraging AvePoint tools to facilitate the transfer of on-premises file shares to the Microsoft cloud. Let us help ensure the success of your enterprise file-sharing initiative through a sound data migration strategy.
Written and composed by our Senior Microsoft SharePoint Architect, Jim Eagleton