Office 365 Dedicated – Content Migration

Interestingly enough, but if you’re using SharePoint Online in Office 365 in a dedicated environment there are opportunities for content migration from onPrem to the cloud by providing copies of content databases to Microsoft. Or at least you used to have that option as described in this document:

SharePoint Online Content Migration Policy – Office 365 Dedicated Plans – January 2013 – http://download.microsoft.com/download/0/4/0/04054360-DC5E-4AB8-B3AB-6BF01BB3946C/SharePoint%20Online%20Content%20Migration%20Policy_Office%20365%20Dedicated%20Plans_Jan%202013.docx

If you’re looking to have a backup copy of your data perhaps or looking to move off of Office 365 Dedicated, the cut off for having content databases pushed out of Microsoft’s system is 15 April 2013 as stated in the documentation:

Starting April 15, 2013, Microsoft will no longer process outbound migrations for SharePoint Online dedicated plan customers. Outbound migrations will instead be accomplished by third-party independent software vendor (ISV) solutions, just like Inbound migrations are today.

Microsoft states that they are doing this for a number of reasons to include:

ISVs provide an effective solution for migrating content out of your SharePoint Online farm, just like for inbound migrations. Using an ISV solution has the following benefits:

• Reduces technical requirements and complexity involved in successfully attaching the data to an on-premises SharePoint farm.
• Frees up customer change windows for deployment of configuration changes and custom solutions.
• Removes the risk and inconvenience of a USB drive shipment.

For information about using ISV solutions for content migration, see the SharePoint Online Content Migration by Third-Party Solutions Policy document, available to customers on the Customer Extranet site.

Overall the document is an interesting read regarding the SharePoint Online 2010 Dedicated service offering that is a component of Office 365 and outbound data migrations. Just remember however that you do have an impending deadline in April if you wish to utilize Microsoft’s outbound data migration service.