Introduction
Transferring data from ShareFile (formerly Citrix ShareFile) to Google Drive isn’t a straightforward process, especially if your company’s goal is to bring everything over to Google Drive without any user impact.
Your team must work with a structured approach guided by a well-crafted plan. But we are here to help you through the entire migration journey. We have prepared this guide to help you understand the entire migration process, from the pre-migration analysis stage to the post-migration validation stage. Read on!
Why do Businesses Migrate Data from ShareFile to Google Drive?
The reasons / use case to move from Citrix ShareFile to Google Drive often varies from one company to another. However, some of the common reasons include:
- Cost savings
- Consolidating into Google Workspace
- Improved cloud governance
- Mergers
- Acquisitions
- Improved security
- Improved user collaboration
Benefits of Moving ShareFile Data to Google Drive
The benefits that companies can gain from switching from ShareFile to Google Drive depend on their specific migration use case. Some of the high-level benefits of making the switch can include:
- Simplified license structure through consolidation
- Improvements in security and user collaboration
- Improvements in cloud governance
In almost all cases, businesses gain the most benefit by aligning the migration to their specific use case.
Potential Challenges and Solutions
The greater the size of data to migrate and features to preserve, the more complex the migration can get and the risk of multiple challenges. Here are some of the primary challenges that most businesses are likely to encounter:
- Maintaining throughput when transferring high volumes of data
- Preserving complex sharing permissions
- Retaining timestamps
- Migrating embedded links without breakage
- Retaining data access with external collaborators
Planning Citrix ShareFile to Google Drive Migration
Proper planning is mission-critical to ensuring the migration journey is smooth and aligned with your organizational goals. Here are some of the most important migration planning steps to take:
1) Pre-Migration Analysis
Perform a thorough pre-migration analysis of your company’s ShareFile storage to understand the usage patterns. This analysis should also help your IT team identify the total number of active user accounts and data size to migrate.
2) Preparing the Scope of Work
Planning a proper scope of work helps allocate the budget and timeline for the migration project. Therefore, make sure to include all the key action items of the migration in the scope, including:
- The total size of files and folders to migrate
- The total number of user accounts to migrate
- The types of features, e.g., permissions, to preserve
- The number of delta syncs needed
- The type of post-migration integration needed
3) Developing a Communication Plan
Your team must not overlook the importance of creating a proper communication plan with the users, stakeholders, and the migration partner. Following this approach helps avoid silos and keeps everyone informed and updated about the migration.
Preparing for the Migration
Complete preparedness enables your team to perform the migration as per the planned roadmap and complete it within the planned timeline. It also helps kick off the project in a smooth and non-disruptive way.
1) Choosing a Citrix ShareFile Migration Tool
One of the primary and most important migration preparation tasks is to choose the right ShareFile to Google Drive migration tool. Perform tests migrations to ensure that the tool you choose meets your company’s entire migration needs.
At CloudFuze, we offer the industry’s most advanced Citrix ShareFile to Google Drive migration tool. The enterprise-grade security and advanced capabilities of our migration tool can help your team ensure accurate replication of the ShareFile environment in Google Drive.
2) Creating User Mapping
Next, create mapping paths between the source (ShareFile) and destination (Google Drive) users. We suggest using the CSV mapping method to have granular control over mapping path of each user account.
3) Preparing the Login Details
Prepare the login details by keeping the account names and passwords of ShareFile and Google Drive admins in handy. Doing this helps you perform the cloud authentication step without any hiccups.
Performing the Citrix ShareFile to Google Drive Migration
After your team has completed all the planning and preparation process, proceed to the migration initiation stage. While you’re there, finalize the migration approach for your company.
1) Migration Approach (Big Bang vs Phased Migration)
You can choose between two migration approaches, Big Bang and Phased. The Big Bang approach (or a complete lift and shift) approach involved transferring everything in one go. This approach, however, raises various downtime risks, such as API rate limiting.
We recommend choosing the Phased migration approach that involves creating multiple user batches and migrating them one after another. This approach helps keep the overall migration lightweight and drastically lowers API throttling risks.
2) ShareFile to Google Drive Migration Steps
Check out the entire steps to migrate data from ShareFile to Google Drive using our content migration tool, CloudFuze X-Change.
Step 1: Login to CloudFuze
Get started by logging into our migration webapp. Don’t have an account yet? Create a new one here.
Step 2: Select Multi-User Migration
Select the Multi User Migration option.
Step 3: Add the ShareFile Cloud
Locate the ShareFile cloud in the Business Clouds section and add it to our migration tool. Enter the admin’s login details, including email ID and password.
Step 4: Authenticate the ShareFile Cloud
Enter the verification code to authenticate the ShareFile cloud in our migration webapp.
Step 5: Add the Google Drive Cloud
Locate the Google Drive cloud from the Business Clouds dashboard and add it to our webapp. Enter the super admin’s email address and password.
Step 6: Authenticate the Google Drive Cloud
Authenticate the Google Drive cloud to ensure proper cloud addition.
Step 7: Verify Clouds Addition
Switch to the Manage Clouds tab and check to ensure both cloud, ShareFile and Google Drive, have been added properly.
Step 8: Select the Source and Destination Clouds
Navigate to the Team Migration panel. There, select ShareFile as the source and Google Drive as the destination cloud.
Step 9: Map the Users
In the Content Mapping stage, map the users from ShareFile to Google Drive. We recommend using the CSV mapping method.
Next, select the mapped users for the migration process.
Step 10: Review Permissions Mapping
Our migration platform automatically maps permissions. Make sure to review the auto-generated permissions mappings. If they need modifications, simply click on the edit icon and make the changes accordingly. Once done, click on Next.
Step 11: Select Migration Options
In the Options stage, configure the migration parameters, such as the features to migrate, the type of migration job required, and more.
Step 12: Preview the Migration Parameters
In the Preview stage, check all the migration parameters and ensure they have been set up properly.
Step 13: Start the Migration
If everything looks good, click on Start Migration to start the data transfer process.
Step 14: Monitor the Migration
You will be redirected to our webapp’s Reports dashboard. There, check the status of the ongoing migration.
The dashboard will display the Completed status upon completion of the migration.
Post-Migration Activities
After the one-time migration gets completed, make sure to perform a set of post-migration tasks to wrap up the project in a proper way.
1) Delta Migration
Perform one or more delta syncs to transfer the incremental changes in ShareFile that have accumulated during the one-time migration. It’s best to schedule delta syncs during weekends (when users are not working) to avoid additional incremental changes from accumulating when the delta sync is in progress.
2) Migration Validation
Check the reports that our tool generates to validate the one-time and delta migration. Make sure to check key parameters, such as the total number of users migrated, the total size of data migrated, the individual count of files and folders migrated, and statuses of conflicts (if any).
3) Post-Migration Integration
Make sure to perform proper post-migration integration by syncing all the migrated data with the apps (native and third party) previously used in ShareFile. You can do this by manually integrating those apps in Google Drive from Google Workspace Marketplace.
4) User Onboarding and Go Live
Lastly, provide users with proper training that guides them in using Google Drive’s features and integration with Google Workspace. After the users are ready and confident, onboard them to Google Drive and make the new cloud platform live across the company.
Conclusion
Migrating data from ShareFile to Google Drive with complete success is possible for businesses of all sizes and industries. However, it is critical to create a proper roadmap and follow all the best practices to be able to transition to the other side without any security and performance compromises.
Discover more scope on how your business can achieve 100% success in migrating from ShareFile to Google Drive. Get in touch with us today!
