Domino to Office 365 Migration|Introduction
On a recent Office 365 Migration from Domino I was experiencing very slow data migration speed. The migration was being done using the Dell Notes Migrator to Exchange (MFNE). Dell offer very good advice on how to maximize the data throughput – in both their product documentation, and also on their support site.
This blog covers the steps I took to investigate the slow speed, and how I was able to ensure I was getting the optimum speed possible.
Step 1|Benchmark
Using MFNE I carried out a test migration to PST on a local disk within the customer environment. This speed was 5GB/hr which acted as a benchmark, informing me what speed was possible without any internet bottlenecks (or O365 bottlenecks).
I then tested uploading a file to DropBox from the MFNE Migration Server. This gave me the typical data upload speed. For this I got 1GB/hr.
Step 2|Proxy
Next I checked what the browser settings were for the MFNE server. Was it using a Proxy server, was http/https traffic being scanned by 3rd Party Software? There was a Proxy Server in place, but no scanning on outbound connections to 80/443.
Step 3|Concurrent Powershell
Microsoft typically limit the number of concurrent powershell login connections you can use to 2. So I took care to ensure the MFNE server only used 2 threads, to ensure I was not being penalised by using any more than 2 concurrent connections. MFNE offers a useful Account Pooling feature than can be used to help manage this for multiple MFNE servers.
Step 4|Ask Microsoft
I contacted Microsoft Office 365 Support using the Tenant Portal, and asked them to maximize the bandwidth for the migration period. They were very responsive and increased various settings related to latency, and throttling. I suspect the maximum settings allowed varies depending on the O365 Plan being used.
Step 5|Results
After doing the above steps I was able to get migration speeds of only 200MB/hr to Office 365, per MFNE server. This presented a problem in terms of meeting deadlines for the customer.
Step 6|Strategy
Due to the slow O365 speed being achieved, I added extra MFNE Migration servers to ensure a faster overall throughput, with each MFNE server using its own O365 powershell account connection. By having 10 MFNE servers, I effectively had 2GB/hr (10x200mb) data migration throughput available. Users were told they had to wait for all their mail to come over, but could use Outlook immediately, as all O365 mailboxes were created first. Check out my blog describing the overall Office 365 Migration Approach, to gain a broader understanding of a migration project.
Conclusion|Domino Migration Consulting
No migration is the same, so contact us for expert consulting for your Office 365 Migration, to ensure you get the right Migration Strategy to ensure success, and minimal business disruption.
