A festive guide to escaping legacy archiving in the new year
It’s that time of year again: inboxes are overflowing with out-of-office replies, IT teams are racing to finish projects before the break, and somewhere in the corner of the server room sits a blinking, wheezing legacy email archive that really should have been decommissioned in 2017.
So, in the spirit of the season, here are the 12 Days of Email Archive Migration — a slightly festive, slightly cheeky look at why now is the perfect time to migrate your legacy archive into Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace.
🎁 On the first day of migration, my IT team said to me…
“Why are we still paying for this thing?”
Licensing, storage, support contracts… legacy archives are the gift that keeps taking.
🎁 On the second day of migration, Legal said to me…
“FOI and SAR responses should not take this long.”
Two systems = twice the searching, twice the pain.
🎁 On the third day of migration, Security said to me…
“This platform doesn’t even support modern authentication.”
’Tis the season for MFA — your archive should celebrate it too.
🎁 On the fourth day of migration, Finance said to me…
“Remind us why we’re paying both Microsoft and Mimecast?”
Consolidation is the new Christmas miracle.
🎁 On the fifth day of migration…
FIVE PST FILES!
(The horror. The corruption. The duplicates. Enough said.)
🎁 On the sixth day of migration, HR said to me…
“We still need access to leavers’ mailboxes from 2014.”
And no one knows where they are. Except the archive. Maybe.
🎁 On the seventh day of migration, Risk said to me…
“Random data retention policies are not a strategy.”
Aged archives often run on “set it and forget it” rules created in another century.
🎁 On the eighth day of migration, IT said to me…
“This server sounds like a tractor when it’s indexing.”
Legacy infrastructure makes exactly the noises you think it does.
🎁 On the ninth day of migration, InfoGov said to me…
“We’d quite like a single system of record, please.”
Consistency: the unsung hero of Christmas.
🎁 On the tenth day of migration, Users said to me…
“Why can’t I find old emails in Outlook?”
Because they’re trapped in an archive user training forgot to mention.
🎁 On the eleventh day of migration, the CIO said to me…
“Cloud-first means the whole email estate, not just the new stuff.”
If your archive isn’t in the cloud, your strategy isn’t complete.
🎁 On the twelfth day of migration, Ultimate Migrator said to me…
“We can extract it all safely — even the PST files — and move it into Microsoft 365.”
Chain of custody. Integrity checks. Zero disruption. Christmas magic, but with logging.
🎅 Wrap-up: give yourself the gift of decommissioning
A legacy archive is a lot like that dusty box of decorations in the loft — familiar, neglected, and slightly terrifying when opened. But unlike your decorations, it’s also expensive, non-compliant, difficult to secure, and blocking your cloud strategy.
If your New Year’s resolution is to reduce risk, save money and simplify your email environment, migrating your archive is the best place to start.
Ultimate Migrator can help you unwrap it all. Contact us here: https://ultimatemigrator.com/contactus/