Key Points to maximize you SharePoint Migration using Sharegate.

 

Many organizations are going through a shift of platforms i.e... from on-premise solutions to online solutions, and SharePoint is one of the major platforms.

In this article, I will be highlighting some basic key concepts which might help you out in maximizing the amount of data transfer from SharePoint on-premise to SharePoint Online using Sharegate as a tool.

The suggestions I mentioned in the article are based on my years of experience, and might not suit some scenarios

Computing Power

Many of us think that while using Sharegate we do not require a powerful system for migration as it is just the transfer of data. But that is not correct as before sending the data, Sharegate does a lot of processing. So having a powerful computing machine will speed up the processing and you can gain the speed.

Though Sharegate recommends optimal performance with 4 cores, my suggestion is to go with a minimum of 

• 8 CPU cores
• 32Gb RAM
• 256 GB of SSD

This will give the maximum resources and power to computing. Try to keep a watch on the CPU resources while the migrations are happening, and if the utilization is more do not wait to add more to the machine/server

Performance

When using Sharegate, you'll find numerous options. The option I am talking about here will directly impact your migration speed.

Run migration using Insane Mode. This mode is very fast in comparison to the normal mode and will surely give you the speed advantage. Why it is faster, you can easily find this in Sharegate articles.

The second thing to remember is that, use the normal option under Performance which is also the default, as this will not let you get trapped in the Throttling issue, by sending the optimal number of requests.

Network

Networking is again one of the most important factors. Though most organizations have their firewalls and all securities in place and cannot alter for migration purposes. But still, try to have your machine closest to the data center so it will give you the advantage of traveling less.

Threads

You need to be very careful while choosing the number of threads or parallel migration instances that you can run. It's not a good idea to run too many migrations at once.

Ideally,

• One account (service/user account) should not migrate more than 2 instances or 2 parallel migrations on a machine/server.

• Do not use multiple accounts on a single machine to migrate multiple/parallel instances of migration

Since there is no clear guideline for home many instances you can use on how many machines from Microsoft. My best bet is to have 2 -3 instances for an account and you can use up to 3-4 service accounts in parallel, running all accounts on different machines/servers

This is based on experience and may depend on a lot of other factors, so start slowly, watch and then react.

 Automation

The best results will yield only when the migration is happening 24 x 7. So I will suggest automating the process by leveraging the PowerShell commands.

As an example, I have kept all the sites to be migrated in a SharePoint list, and my PowerShell script looks for the new site once the migration gets completed into that list. In this way, my script is never out of work and I can easily manage the sites to be migrated.

Conclusion

By following the above-mentioned simple key points I was able to do ~1TB per week. The speed may vary from scenario to scenario. I think 1TB is a pretty decent amount and can handle a very large volume of migration data.

Do remember you get the maximum speed during the weekends and off office hours so do not forget to make the most out of that time.

If you have any specific scenarios, feel free to drop in a comment, I will try my best to answer you.

 

Happy Migrating

Sumit Kanchan