I'm new to handling this type of migration and am looking for guidance on pricing, planning, and best practices. We're a fully remote company with fewer than 50 users, and I'm considering moving from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365. I need to recreate the user accounts, migrate everyone's email, and run both platforms in parallel for a short period before completing the cutover. I had originally considered building a traditional Active Directory domain, but I'm also evaluating Microsoft Entra ID for identity and device management. What migration tools or services would you recommend, and what should I plan for during the transition?
4 Answers
Microsoft provides a native Gmail-to-Microsoft 365 migration process that may be sufficient for fewer than 50 users. It can be a good starting point if your needs are limited to mail and you want to avoid paying for a third-party migration platform. Be sure to review authentication requirements, mailbox permissions, calendar and contact migration, DNS changes, and the final synchronization before switching MX records.
For a fully remote organization, you probably don’t need to build traditional on-premises Active Directory. Microsoft Entra ID joined devices are usually a better fit, especially if you’re starting fresh and primarily need cloud identity, authentication, and device management.
You could also look at cloud administration and security platforms such as BetterCloud. They can help manage users and SaaS operations, but they’re more of an ongoing administration and governance tool than a dedicated replacement for a mailbox migration service.
I haven’t used it before, so that distinction helps. I’ll treat it as a possible management option rather than assuming it handles the whole migration.
BitTitan is worth considering for the mailbox migration. You can queue all the accounts, run trial or pre-stage migrations, and move users in batches. That makes it possible to copy most of the historical mail ahead of time and perform a shorter final cutover. It’s also generally affordable for a deployment of this size.
That sounds useful. I’m especially interested in how it handles pre-staging and what the approximate cost would be for a small number of mailboxes.
That was my thinking as well. I initially mentioned AD because it’s what I know, but Entra ID may be the cleaner approach for this environment.