Understanding the factors that influence migration costs, and why the price of moving your data is only part of the equation.
For organisations considering a move away from Enterprise Vault, cost is often one of the first questions.
How much will it cost to migrate years of archived email into Microsoft 365? What determines the price? And how does that compare with the cost of continuing to operate the existing archive?
Unfortunately, there isn’t a universal price for an Enterprise Vault migration.
The cost depends on several factors, some of which aren’t immediately obvious when organisations begin planning their projects.
Understanding those factors early can help avoid unexpected costs, unnecessary complexity and delays to decommissioning.
1. How much data needs to be migrated?
The volume of archived data is an obvious starting point.
An organisation with 5TB of archived email will have different requirements from one managing 100TB or more.
But data volume alone doesn’t tell the whole story.
The number of individual messages, archive structure, storage locations and condition of the data can all affect migration complexity.
A relatively small archive containing millions of individual items may require more processing than its storage footprint suggests.
Accurate discovery is essential before estimating migration costs.
2. How many users and archives are involved?
Enterprise Vault environments often contain more archives than an organisation has current employees.
Former employees, shared mailboxes, journal archives and historic organisational structures can all contribute to the total.
Understanding how many archives exist, who owns them and where their contents need to go is an important part of calculating migration costs.
It’s also an opportunity to identify data that may no longer need to be retained, subject to applicable retention and legal requirements.
3. Where is the data going?
Many organisations migrate Enterprise Vault archives into Microsoft 365.
However, the destination environment can introduce additional considerations.
Mailbox configuration, archive mailbox capacity, retention policies, permissions and Microsoft 365 ingestion limits can all influence how a migration is designed and scheduled.
Organisations should also consider whether historic email belongs in individual user archives, shared environments or another appropriately governed destination.
The right destination strategy can prevent unnecessary migration work and reduce complications later.
4. What about Enterprise Vault shortcuts?
Enterprise Vault shortcuts are frequently overlooked when migration costs are calculated.
Users may have thousands of shortcuts in their mailboxes pointing to messages held within Enterprise Vault.
These need to be considered when migrating historic email and planning the eventual removal of the legacy archive.
Depending on the chosen migration approach, shortcuts may need to be rehydrated, replaced or removed.
Failing to account for them can leave users unable to access historic messages or create additional work after the main migration has finished.
5. How will the migration be validated?
Moving data is one thing. Demonstrating that it has moved successfully is another.
For organisations with compliance, regulatory or legal obligations, migration validation is particularly important.
A migration project should be able to account for the data identified at the source, confirm what reached the destination and explain any exceptions.
That means allowing for reconciliation, reporting and exception handling as part of the project.
A cheaper migration that cannot demonstrate its results may create more expense and risk in the long term.
6. When can Enterprise Vault be switched off?
This is potentially the most important financial consideration.
Many organisations initiate an Enterprise Vault migration because they want to eliminate ongoing licensing, infrastructure, maintenance and support costs.
But those savings may not materialise until Enterprise Vault has actually been decommissioned.
If an organisation completes its migration but continues operating the legacy archive for another year, the overall cost of the project can increase substantially.
The business case should therefore consider the complete journey:
Discovery → Migration → Validation → Decommissioning
Not simply the cost of transferring data.
Look beyond the migration quote
When comparing Enterprise Vault migration solutions, organisations should consider the total cost of achieving their intended outcome.
That includes the migration technology, implementation effort, infrastructure, project duration, validation requirements and eventual retirement of the legacy environment.
It also means considering the risks associated with incomplete migrations, unexpected exceptions and continued dependency on Enterprise Vault.
The lowest initial quote doesn’t always represent the lowest overall cost.
Enterprise Vault migration at scale
Ultimate Migrator provides specialist software for migrating historic email from Enterprise Vault and other legacy archive platforms.
Our experience includes the large-scale migration of Enterprise Vault data for approximately 180,000 NHS Wales users, demonstrating the importance of planning, scalability and reliable migration processes.
Whether you’re migrating to Microsoft 365, reviewing Enterprise Vault renewal costs or planning to decommission your legacy archive, understanding the full scope of the project is the first step towards an accurate migration estimate.
Planning an Enterprise Vault migration? Drop us a line and let’s talk: https://ultimatemigrator.com/contactus/