System Migration What & Why Part 1 – To Greener Pastures

Megan Bozman
  • 7 min read

What is a Migration?

Simply put, migration is moving your data and operating infrastructure from one system to another. This could include migrating from disparate spreadsheets to a BI SaaS app such as Looker, moving from on-prem servers to cloud storage, or migrating to Google Workspace from Microsoft 365.

At Wursta, we specialize in moving organizations into Google Workspace and Google Cloud, as well as optimizing once there. Workspace migrations typically include mail, calendar, contacts, cloud storage, and all the collaboration data a company may have.

Why Migrate?

1. Modernizing Systems

Many organizations migrate to take advantage of the modern functionality of newer systems. They might move away from legacy systems like Rackspace or IMAP in order to tap into the collaboration power of Google Workspace. In particular, with the rapid shift to remote in 2020, companies realized they needed a robust and modern collaboration system for not only email, but also vital business activities such as document creation. If you’ve ever experienced multiple colleagues emailing around Word doc attachments titled, “New_New_Version_2_Updated,” you know the pain.

2. Merger & Acquisitions (M&A)

Mergers and acquisitions require some degree of migration in order to combine all the assets of the new, larger organization and enable collaboration. In the case of an acquisition, the acquired company is typically moved into an existing tenant of the acquirer. With a merger, two companies are combined into one single tenant. And in the case of a divestiture (the opposite of an acquisition), a portion of an organization is moved out into a new tenant.

Wursta has experience migrating multiple tenants into one, which often requires de-duplication of accounts.

3. Platform Consolidation

Many organizations subscribe to Google Workspace, while continuing to use other systems such as Dropbox. With Google Workspace, you have access to tools such as Google Drive, which delivers all the functionality of Dropbox for zero added cost. Continuing to use Dropbox or Box is an unnecessary additional expense, while failing to use functionality you’re already paying for.

Does Migration = Moving Everything?

People might move to access “greener pastures” with better grazing land for their sheep. However, you might want to maintain your existing apple orchard.

Likewise, with IT migrations, you can make some changes without entirely abandoning your current infrastructure. For example, you might choose to migrate to Gmail while maintaining document storage on Dropbox. Sure, there’s a financial incentive to drop Dropbox, but it’s absolutely possible to retain if you choose.

Of course, that begs the question…

Does Google Do It All? Is it Best to Migrate Entirely to Google?

Pretty much, yup.

For Google Workspace customers, we see very little need to have other 3rd party storage systems such as Dropbox or Box, or 3rd party collaboration tools such as Zoom. We’d be more than happy to show you a demo of how to accomplish the same things in Google Workspace.

How Long Does Migration Take?

Migrations can be as short as one week or take up to several months depending on the quantity of users and total amount of data. At Wursta, we organize migrations into the following timeline:

Larger migrations, in excess of 1,000 seats, may be divided into two phases of bulk migration. Sure, we could throw everything into the system and hope for the best, but that’s not the best approach to yield favorable outcomes. Instead, we spend time upfront planning every aspect of the migration.

Just how do we plan to make migrations successful? We’ll address that in part 2, delving into common migration pitfalls and how to avoid them.