Migrations 101

Native Migration v. ISV Tools

Using the tools at hand or performing a “Native” migration is often the first attempt at most migration projects. I call this the “Do What You Can” approach because often the needs of the organization cannot be met using the native tools. The toolkits that come with different technologies from 3rd party ISV’s are often designed to keep you on these technologies. Take for example email archive solutions. Most of these will come raring to import everything they see into their database, but when you try to go pump this data out to PST to move away from their platform, you will often find that these tools do not exist, are painfully slow or come at a per-user cost. As it pertains to Microsoft Tech, they often just do not include certain parts of a technology so that their ISV market can thrive on building the “Bolt-On” tools required for migration or analytics for example. There are however some instances where native tools are beginning to have some impact, Microsoft is making things easier, moving directory objects or mailboxes from one system to another. The problem is that you can’t write one tool that will encompass every possible migration scenario. Natively, you will find that you are often left out in the cold because of your particular critical need or requirement.

Big Bang

In smaller migrations, often the path of least resistance is the “Big Bang” approach. This means that all the users leave on Friday afternoon, and the migration team swoops in and moves the systems and services from one location to the other. There is no period of co-existence in this scenario. Big Bang migrations are never smooth and require a significant amount of white glove at the endpoints usually.

Sync and Switch

Co-existence requirements often force a more balanced and planned approach for large companies or the enterprise. Applications need to be available, and helpdesk resources often dictate the number of machines or users who can be migrated in a single 24-hour period. For these reasons, we have to carve up the migration into nightly chunks that can be handled by our morning mitigation teams. Performing a migration this way means that applications go last, must be available to the target users via sidHistory and DNS/Trust. The co-existence period ends when the last user is across the finish line. The applications and servers follow them shortly afterward, but there is no rush to get them over because they have been set up for Co-Existence.

Forklift

A forklifts’ only purpose in life is to pick up something from one place and drop it in another place. A Forklift Migration does just that, and is applicable across all types of migrations. In Active Directory migrations, you are moving from one AD structure to another, from one version of AD to another. You are not changing forests or security models, just “Keeping up with the Joneses” so to speak. In Email migrations, you are moving from one version of Exchange to another, or perhaps you are moving to the Cloud. These are the easiest types of migrations, and the most likely to be successful using native tools. This does not mean you should do less planning, or research what the vendors have to offer you versus native.

Acquisition

The food chain exists in corporations, the big fish eats the little fish. When Company A decides that Company B’s widgets are a perfect match to their business offerings, Company B gets bought. Generally speaking, Company A is often the entity now responsible for bringing all of the lines of business (LOB’s) into convergence. This does give some direction to the project and simplifies the approvals process. This is helpful in a migration because permission to perform certain actions can cause arguments between the parties. It is important in an Acquisition to have an Executive Sponsor who drives your approvals from “On-High”.

Divestiture

When a company breaks off a part of itself and sells this portion of its portfolio, this is called a “Divestiture”. This particular project is one of the more complex in the world of migrations because one company’s culture is vastly different from the other. There are duplicate everything and no single source of direction. Company A is selling their widget operation off to Company B. The sale finalizes in 12 months. During this period, we must make room for the other board to have control over the widget operation, maybe give secured access into our environment for Company B to make changes, or plan to migrate into their environment. There are two projects in play here, one from Company A to get all LOB systems, services and staff divested away from their environment, and a second project from Company B which is planning for the acquisition and making demands of the project team at Company A.

Multiple Source

Multiple Source Migrations are the toughest migration projects, these can encompass both a divestiture and an acquisition, and can also have multiple accounts for the same users in the different environments. You should never attempt one of these types of migrations without expert assistance. Company A bought Company B and just created a bunch of accounts for all the users from Company B in Company A so they can all see the SharePoint sites. Now they have bought Company C and have done the same. The mandate comes down that it is now too difficult to manage all of the accounts and a consolidation is ordered. These are often multi-year projects and require layer merge of the users’ objects into a single object and multiple duplications of groups and workstations.

It Boils Down To Planning

Any way you slice it, you have a dilemma on your hands. I have often thought that the amount of planning you do for a migration directly reduces the amount of grey hair you have at the end of the project, and it is so true. The true value of using a migration professional, and why most migration ISV tools come as “Services Required” is because these professionals do migrations all the time. They know what you don’t know, and can see coming what you do not. Over the last decade or so, I personally have built a “Lessons Learned” library which encompasses all types of migration scenarios. This is your Ace in the Hole. A migration specialist hits the ground early and begins irrigating the grey matter. We get the conversation started with all of the teams involved. Once we start moving in this direction, we start looking for the Gotchas or Landmines.

To learn more, or to book a free consultation, send us an email to sales@halcyonsvc.com. We look forward to hearing from you!