Sharepoint migration could be a daunting task keeping aside all the associated benefits. But it does not always have to be complex if one follows a simple guideline. You realize it is time for your business to migrate onto SharePoint when all your previous methods have failed you, and your data centers reek of flawed data. SharePoint migration could either begin with a file-sharing task or in an existing SharePoint environment.
To protect the sanctity and legacy of your data, a clean and thorough method, as stated below, should be followed.
Planning plays an integral role in the migration from traditional to cloud-based servers. The plan should highlight your road map of the change you intend on bringing.
The plan is an indicator of how you will go about it when you make a move, what factors would assist you, how you can speed up or slow down the process based on your needs, and customize it according to your business needs.
Planning also includes the types of files you want to migrate. You will now have to work with various departments; therefore, some critical data files need to be kept while others have to be discarded. Dealing with interdepartmental content requires you to play around with a considerable amount of data.
Old data, new data, user data, and useless files must be considered before making a move. So plan before you toss around the content.
Mandatory Clean Up:
Old junk could be harmful to your new environment, redundant, and at times troublesome. It is necessary to get rid of old trash and data by cleaning up before migrating to SharePoint Online.
Maintain a clean new standard for file sharing and saving. The mandatory clean up is needed to organize all your data or content in one place, which allows a lot more governance and control over your content.
Organization or clean up may include tagging your documents as most important, regularly needed, or categorizing them. You can remove the duplicate files present in your current system. The duplicate file copies are also junk.
Organized data gets rid of the confusion, gives you better access and control of your data, and allows more room for standardization. This clean-up is, therefore, mandatory before SharePoint migration.
Test Runs:
Test migration is the same as giving something a go before buying or using it for the long run. In this phase, before migrating to SharePoint, you try the application. Since migrations are not always as easy as dreamed, it is wise to do some test runs.
During this test run phase, use the appropriate tools and techniques that you require to see the SharePoint performance. A file that contains a significant amount of data has limits on length, characters, and sizes.
Test runs on these files and content will open up a new window of the performance of SharePoint. So test migration before migrating to Office 365.
Migration; A leap of Faith:
Once you are done with running tests on microsoft SharePoint, you are good to migrate. Now you can migrate your content and data to the SharePoint site.
Your choice is what sort of migration you want to make; it is therefore customized to your preference.
You could either move ten people or an entire departmental content; you may want to migrate one server at a time or could go with multiple.
Whichever path you choose to follow, it is your calling and preference. But always stay reminded that SharePoint migration is a roadmap to success in the business world. You succeed in making a move, and you’ll flourish, you fail to change, you diminish.