Top 5 Migration Costs to Consider

Many companies are considering migrating Windows File Shares to Office 365 SharePoint, what are the SharePoint Migration Costs?

Let’s review the top 5 costs to consider.

Migratiekosten SharePoint

1. SharePoint Migration Import Costs

Migrating organizations to SharePoint is a complicated, challenging endeavor. Migrating file shares to SharePoint involves months of planning to sort and identify data to move from a pool of file shares that can go back years, if not decades. To migrate files to SharePoint, Files must converted to remove characters not allowed in SharePoint and mapped to SharePoint libraries to stay within the SharePoint storage limits using specialized tools that must be purchased at an additional cost. In addition, most organizations do not have the specialized skills to successfully execute a SharePoint migration and will need to budget for a Microsoft certified consulting provider to assist in the design and migration.

2. Vendor Lock-in and Data Sovereignty

Many companies are subject to regulatory requirements that restrict where files can store. Even if the organizations SharePoint data can be placed in-country to meet storage location compliance regulation requirements what format are the files stored in? Are the files in a format that can be accessed even if SharePoint or the Internet is unavailable? What happens if the organization wishes to ever wants move their files out of SharePoint? If the files are stored in SharePoint proprietary format what will be the costs to export, migrate and convert them to a new vendor format or back to native NTFS file shares. Organizations will want to think carefully about export costs as they may find that if for any reason they desire to move to another platform the future costs of any migration will far outweigh any short term costs savings.

3. Long Term Archiving & Backup Costs

Traditional file shares can be easily encrypted and stored offsite indefinitely in their native NTFS file format, then easily restored at any time in the future regardless of any technology changes. With SharePoint, entire systems must be restored, or with SharePoint Online, deleted files are only retained for 90 days meaning additional archiving services must be purchased and paid for perpetually which store SharePoint into long-term archives. These backup and storage costs will lead to additional support and subscription costs on top of Office 365 subscription costs. To meet compliance and archiving requirements the costs of maintaining duplicate systems for backup and data retention will need to be factored into any overall cost estimates.

4. Future Subscription Price Increases

If files are stored in SharePoint online that are difficult or impossible to export, what leverage will the organization have in future licensing pricing negotiations? With all files migrated, exporting and migrating to new systems may be impractical leaving the firm with no leverage on price negotiations and subject to any future price increases. While this might not be an issue for smaller firms, it’s common for larger enterprises, educational institutions and governmental agencies to negotiate hefty Microsoft licensing discounts.

5. Training & Productivity Costs

Users are trained to easily grab their files from a mapped drive. With SharePoint, files are stored in libraries that are accessed using a web-based interface or from within apps only. The interface looks nothing like Windows File Explorer. With SharePoint, files are stored in libraries where they are best managed by applying metadata tags to each file. To find documents in SharePoint, users will need to be retrained to apply tags to each file leading to initial frustration, lost productivity, and additional user support costs. The costs of trining employees trained on SharePoint with its many advanced features and document management requirements can be significant.

There you have it – the Top 5 SharePoint Migration Costs to Consider. 😊