What Can Businesses Expect in a POC Migration?

Introduction

POCs (proof of concept) work better than demos for businesses planning to finalize the migration service provider and start the migration project. But how does any business benefit the most from the POC migration scheduled with the vendor?

This guide highlights some of the crucial factors that help businesses set realistic expectations for a POC migration.

1. Clarity on How the Project Is Allocated to the Migration Team

One of the primary expectations of any business during a POC migration should be to get clarity on the migration project allocation from the migration vendor. Clarifying this area is especially important for businesses that plan to move forward with a managed (white glove) migration service.

Here are some of the critical areas to get clarity on:

• POC migration planning and kick-off meeting
• Availability of a dedicated account manager and their migration team
• Roles and responsibilities of the account manager or POC architect
• How will the scope and timeline of the POC be planned

2. Understanding of the Deliverables That the Migration Team Requires

In many cases, businesses and their IT teams do not completely understand the deliverables that the migration team needs to perform the POC migration. Therefore, it is ideal that the migration team explains all the deliverables that any business’s IT or management team must prepare.

Some of the mission-critical deliverables for initiating a cloud data migration for POC for businesses include:

• A finalized list of user accounts and data size
• Pre-provisioning of the user accounts to be migrated for the POC
• Admin accounts of both the source and destination clouds
• A finalized list of the features (e.g., permissions) to migrate in the POC
• Source cloud-specific features to be migrated (e.g., transferring Dropbox Paper in a Dropbox to OneDrive for Business migration)

3. Use of the Exact Approaches To Perform the Migration

Businesses must also expect clarity from the migration team on the exact approaches that will be used for POC and one-time and delta migration. Some of the critical approaches to understand include:

• The mapping technique used (auto-mapping or CSV mapping)
• Segregation of the migration into several batches
• Migration queuing and processing approaches
• Completion confirmation of every migration batch

4. Insights into the Capabilities of the Migration Tool

One of the most crucial areas for businesses to focus on during a POC migration is understanding the capabilities of the migration tool. The IT team must understand the tool’s capabilities to migrate various types of features linked to user data, including:

• Root and inner folder/file permissions
• Timestamps
• Embedded links
• Versions
• External shared
• In-line comments
• Shared links

Businesses must also understand the capabilities of the migration tool to overcome the limitations of the destination cloud. This is especially important for businesses planning to migrate to Office 365 as OneDrive for Business, and SharePoint Online has several file/folder naming convention limitations.

5. Real-time Demonstration of Migration Reporting

IT teams of companies planning any scale of migration must set a clear expectation of transparency in reporting the project’s progress. And the best way to understand the reporting process is to opt for a real-time demonstration of the migration reporting during the POC migration.

Businesses and their IT teams can also use the POC migration as an opportunity to understand what to check in data migration reports.

6. Sneak Peek into the Data Validation Techniques

The approaches to validate data and features such as permissions and embedded links are different. Therefore, businesses need to get an early look at the way the migration team validates data and features migration during the POC migration.

For example, validation of one-time migration is different than delta migration validation. Validation of features also varies from one feature to another.