All this talk about the Postini-to-Google Apps-transition has us thinking. Thinking  about transitions, that is! Fun stuff – or a nightmare – depending on who you ask. (Fun stuff if you ask us though.) If you are looking to transition into the cloud and off your legacy system completely, you have a couple of options. One of those is Google Apps for Business, an entire cloud-based suite of applications, including Gmail, Google Drive, Calendar, and endless customizable apps.

Sounds great, we know, but you have important data on your legacy system that you just can’t live without. Good news for you, we are experts at migrating that data into the Google Apps platform! There are multiple ways to get your Email, Contacts, and Calendar in your legacy system over into Google Apps. A transition to Google Apps can be seamless when you utilize Google’s group of Migration tools with help from the professional staff at Business Intelligence 101, a Premier Google Apps Reseller.

Migrating from Exchange
In our experience, Microsoft Exchange is the most common platform companies are leaving when they switch to Google Apps.  Below are two ways to migrate data from an Exchange server.

Server-side migration
We highly recommend the server-side migration method because it requires only one touchpoint. At Business Intelligence 101, our customer support team utilizes a tool with the capability to migrate users’ existing email messages, personal contacts, and calendar entries into their new Google Apps accounts. This method is applicable to Microsoft Exchange server 2003, 2007, and 2010.

User-side migration/sync
When users wish to continue using Outlook as their primary mail client (instead of using the Gmail web interface), we recommend the user-side migration/sync method. The Business Intelligence 101 customer support team can help you migrate not only email, personal contacts, and calendar, but also users’ personal archives (PST files). The only downside is that the tool has to be installed and configured on every PC. The steps are simple, but having to manage migration for thousands of users can become troublesome for your IT team.

Migrating from other Email sources
So you’re not using Microsoft. And you want to migrate. You have options as well. Google also offers solutions for migrating from legacy systems such as Lotus Notes as well as any RFC 3501-compliant IMAP servers (Novell Groupwise, Courier, Cyrus, Dovecot, etc.).

Lotus Notes migration
Email, contacts, calendar, and group information can be migrated from users’ existing Notes accounts into new Google Apps accounts. Business Intelligence 101 can help with this process.

IMAP migration
Email messages can be migrated through IMAP, however if your users wish to migrate personal contacts and calendar, the data will have to be uploaded manually to each user’s new Google Apps account. Business Intelligence 101 can assist with this process as well.

Questions?
Migrating from a legacy system into Google Apps doesn’t have to be a headache, and certainly doesn’t need to be done alone by on-premise IT! We are here to help, and happy to do it. Give us a call at (925) 443-3387 or email us at sales@bi101.com to schedule a consultation.