Microsoft Adding Google G Suite Migration in Exchange Admin Center -- Redmondmag.com

Microsoft Adding Google G Suite Migration in Exchange Admin Center

By Kurt Mackie
04/17/2019

Microsoft's Exchange Admin Center will be getting the ability to move Google G Suite calendar, contacts and e-mail data over to the Office 365 service "in the coming weeks," according to a Tuesday Exchange team announcement.

It's a 10-step process using the Exchange Admin Center to make the move. However, IT pros have to complete a bunch of preliminary steps using Google's tools beforehand. Once those steps are completed, the Exchange Admin Center or Exchange Online PowerShell can be used to move Google G Suite items over to Office 365. The steps, involving various graphical user interface-based tools, are outlined in this Microsoft document.

Organizations can perform a "cutover migration," where everything gets moved at once. Alternatively, they can do a "staged migration," which takes place over a longer period of time, with "coexistence" occurring between the two e-mail services. In any case, Microsoft recommends moving users in batches, such as moving certain departments together.

IT pros should consider the average mailbox size that's getting moved to determine the right approach, as well as the kind of data that's getting moved.

Moving Google G Suite data to Office 365 seems like a slow proposition. It's possible to move 2GB of data per mailbox per day, although any data that didn't move over will commence migrating on the subsequent day.

The 2-GB daily limit comes from Google. "This limit is enforced by G Suite," Microsoft's announcement stated. The rate at which contacts and calendar data can get moved is somewhat unclear as it "completely depends on the quota restrictions for your tenant's service account on the Google G Suite side," Microsoft's announcement explained.

Some Google G Suite data won't get moved. Things like filters, rules, automatic replies, vacation settings, shared calendars and room bookings won't migrate. Tags for contacts won't move. It's possible to move three e-mail addresses per contact, but no more. Google Vault data won't get moved over. The max default e-mail size that can be migrated is 35MB, but IT pros could alter the default. The move won't support Google labels, and so labeled data will get moved into folders bearing the label's name.

The new migration feature, when it's available for a particular Office 365 tenancy, will be show up under the "Migration tab in the Exchange Admin Center," Microsoft indicated.

For smaller organizations, Redmondmag.com contributor Brien Posey earlier offered tips for performing mailbox-by-mailbox migrations.

About the Author

Kurt Mackie is senior news producer for 1105 Media's Converge360 group.

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