Forum Discussion
simple Exchange 2007 to Office 365 migration
Hi,
I am trying to simplify my migration from Exchange 2007 on a SBS 2008 server to Office 365. I am hoping someone can tell me if the quick and dirty process I have put together is realistic and will work. First off, I have 4 users total with mailboxes ranging from practically 0 to 11GB. Total email is less than 20GB for all 4 users. I have already purchased my Exchange Plan 1 and have set up my users.
I have seen how slow it is to transfer psts using Azure on this connection so instead I would like to see if this will work:
I want to write all my current email to pst files locally on each pc
Then I want to convert my users to Office 365 so they will have a blank fresh mailbox when they log in with a new email profile
Then I can have them open the local pst and import at their leisure or leave the data in the PST - I know that puts them at risk if the PC crashes and my ultimate goal is to get it all in the cloud but I think this will be the quickest way to get my users up and running with minimum downtime yet still having access to all their old email data
Have I oversimplified this whole thing or will this work for my purposes? As I mentioned the pst transfer up was incredibly slow - one 4 GB pst I used as a test started out showing 58 hours to transfer initially. After running all night it was looking like it would probably end up being around 30 hours.
I appreciate any input those of you in the know could provide to me.
Thanks
This is a great inquiry and is super necessary for many people right now.
The process that you're describing might be faster and easier for I.T., but is probably going to be painful for your end users, and will in the long run, likely take more time than it creates from having to help your end users (unless you have a small number of super savvy ones, which I hope is true for you!).
Everything you're looking for is in the last two links below, but I've included more for anyone who comes across this information.
Basic starting info is available here.
Planning and general information on this process is available here.
Please see this article to get started.
And check this article out for specific cutover migration info.
Thanks for the reply and information - I know I am taking an unconventional approach but will the basic steps I listed work? As long as my users can access their old info via PSTs in the short term, I can deal with the data over time at a slower pace - especially during the next couple of slow weeks due to the holidays.
"Technically" yes, but per my reply, I believe this will not actually simplify your migration, and in fact will create more work in the long run.
