You can migrate the email, calendar and contact information from on-premises email server to Exchange Online using minimal hybrid method, cutover method, staged method and so on. In this first part of a six-part email migration from on-premises Exchange server to Exchange Online series, we will be discussing the best practices you can follow to improve the migration performance and get maximum speed and best results.
To optimize your migration process, follow the steps given below. These tips are derived from Microsoft's internal testing and customer migration experiences.
- Migration method: Choose the migration method (hybrid deployment, cutover or staged methods) based on the volume of data to be migrated and bulk or individual migration needs. Refer to this to learn more about deciding the type of migration.
- Network usage: Run Exchange analyzer tests in Support and Recovery Assistant to understand the network connectivity before migrating. Navigate to Advanced Diagnostics > Exchange Online > Check Exchange Online network connectivity > Yes, to perform the tests.
- Network stability and delays: Use the latest hardware drivers and software before migrating. Also take the possible latency issues in potential Microsoft data centers to have consistent results.
- Back-end tasks: Ensure that the no maintenance or backup task is running during the migration process. The backend tasks might reduce the speed of migration as it will consume more system and network resources.
- Migration concurrency: Choose wisely the number of mailboxes to be migrated simultaneously. Choosing too many mailboxes at a time can choke your resources and if you choose less number of mailboxes, it may not be an optimal migration. By default, the choice is 20 mailboxes. You can keep increasing the count after observing the system’s performance.
Note: Please be informed that despite all these best practices, migration process can still take some time because the service is designed to throttle the workloads (such as the mailbox move commands) based on the resource availability. Other factors such as the migration server, network capacity and stability also affect migration.
M365 Manager Plus helps you to keep track of the migration process by offering pre-defined and intuitive reports.
About M365 Manager Plus and migration statistics report
M365 Manager Plus is a comprehensive Microsoft 365 reporting, management, monitoring, auditing, and alerting tool. It provides reports on Exchange server to Exchange Online migration users and stats. Follow the steps given below to generate migration statistics report using M365 Manager Plus.
- Click on the Reports tab.
- Navigate to Exchange Online > Mailbox Reports > General Mailbox Reports.
- Choose the Migration Statistics report.
- Select the corresponding Microsoft 365 Tenant.
- Click on Generate Now.
Why choose M365 Manager Plus for your Microsoft 365 organization?
- Reports with advanced features: Offers 700+ pre-configured reports with attribute and condition-based filters. The reports are geolocation-enabled.
- Historical data and storage: Generates reports evenfor data that is older than 180 days. The audit logs can be stored for an indefinite period.
- Customizable dashboard: Offers customizable dashboards to help you get a quick peek at the summarized data. These dashboards can also be embedded in your web pages to enable constant monitoring.
- Report scheduler: Reports can be scheduled to be generated and emailed to the stakeholders at regular intervals. This reduces the arduous job of manual report generation.
- Report exporting: Reports can be exported to PDF, XLSX, HTML, or CSV formats and saved in the local computer for future reference.
- Templates and automation: Helps manage Microsoft 365 objects like users, contacts and groups in bulk. Create templates for user provisioning and automating other Microsoft 365 tasks.
- Customizable templates: Set rules to auto-populate fields and create your own custom naming formats and password policies for the templates.
- Secure delegation: Delegate the task of report generation to technicians and IT staffs without giving them elevated rights and access over Microsoft 365 objects. Create your own custom roles with just enough granular permission.
- Virtual tenants: Create customizable virtual tenants, and delegate it to the technicians to perform help desk activities.
Click here to learn more about how M365 Manager Plus offers simple solution for complex Microsoft 365 issues.
