A growing number of organisations are looking to move from their existing email platform to Exchange 2010 – but the associated large scale migration of critical data is a process fraught with risk. Meticulous planning and making good technological choices will help ensure a relatively painless transition.
Preparing for migration
Many organisations are looking to upgrade from existing email platforms to Exchange 2010, and it is easy to see why. Long term email archiving, high availability, disaster recovery back up, and new and improved administrative features are just some of the attractions for IT managers.
Exchange allows enterprises to remove much of the daily burden of email management, while simultaneously gaining more control over their email. Yet migrating to Exchange 2010, be it on-premise or delivered from the cloud, is not a simple process. IT decision-makers need to ensure they are fully prepared for any problems that may arise during the migration itself, and also during the bedding-in period.
Challenges of Exchange migration
Most businesses now store vast amounts of information – over two-thirds of firms expect to transfer well over 100GB of data during an Exchange upgrade – and consequently migration can be both costly and arduous.
The most obvious and significant risks during any critical data migration are hardware failure and unplanned outages, but the potential for loss of critical data during the transition represents an equally serious risk. The cost of migration can be recouped within 12 months or less, but data loss can cause irrevocable damage to your organisation’s reputation and business relationships.
Exchange 2010 is multi-tenant, making it easier to run from the cloud, and a single, web-based administration console makes it possible for businesses to run some mailboxes on-premise and some in the cloud. However, moving data from a number of fragmented locations slows down the migration process as well as heightening the risk of failure.
Being migration-ready
Around 45% of companies plan to archive all data before moving to minimise risk. Moving emails to a third party archive – such as Mimecast’s unified solution delivered from the cloud – means there is no need to transport email data as part of your upgrade, removing the threat of data loss and greatly mitigating risk of further disruption.
Mimecast is an established provider of cloud based email archiving, email continuity and email security services. Mimecast’s ability to seamlessly integrate with Microsoft Exchange, coupled with its promise to deliver 100% email availability, means end users will benefit from continuous access to live and archived email, via any web browser or their smartphones.
A third party solution such as Mimecast’s enables you to achieve a seamless migration – allowing end users to work without disruption during the move. Along with the requisite planning, this deployment will make you genuinely ‘migration-ready’.
