If you’re making decisions on behalf of a company, this due diligence is even more vital. You can’t afford to sacrifice speed and performance just to save a few bucks – the stakes are too high. A free migration tool may seem like a no-brainer, but let’s take look under the hood.
What you get with free
Cloud providers will often throw in migration services when a company is switching to them from another platform. This makes sense, because helping the account move means they can begin realizing revenue sooner. Taking advantage of this free service may be the right solution when the project is simple or you’re moving a single workload. But it’s still important to understand what you get when you choose “free” over a purpose-built tool like MigrationWiz.
Let’s look at Microsoft’s FastTrack migration services, which are “free” for customers with eligible subscriptions. Okay, so you noticed that, too? The first thing you’ll need to do is determine if your subscription is eligible. FastTrack is available for net new users of Microsoft 365 – those who are adding Microsoft licenses. That means it would not apply to tenant-to-tenant migrations, for example. Here are other caveats you’ll want to take into account:
- FastTrack services are available only if you’ve purchased a minimum number of Microsoft licenses.
- Available scenarios are limited, even though new scenarios are expected to be added to FastTrack in the future.
- Migration services are performed by Microsoft experts, but that means the process and timetable is in their control. This hands-off approach makes it more difficult to manage end-users expectations.
- You’ll get a general timetable for your migration, but active status monitoring and moment-by-moment progress won’t be available during a FastTrack migration.
- When you hand over control, your migration could be processed in any Microsoft datacenter – anywhere in the world. This means you won’t be able to have a preference for region if this is important to your company.
- When you calculate the value of “free,” keep in mind that your IT team or MSP will still need to put in significant hours on pre-migration, configuration, and project management.
BitTitan is a fan and partner of Microsoft 365, Teams, and Azure. MigrationWiz supports hundreds of migrations each year to, from, and between Microsoft tenants. That’s why we feel it’s important that you have the information you need to choose the right migration tool for your situation. MigrationWiz is a full-featured solution regardless of the size of your project, your Source, or your Destination.
