Why It Makes Sense To Migrate Legacy Data To Microsoft 365 Now

In a previous blog, we discussed why you should migrate your legacy data at the same time you plan to onboard your users to Microsoft 365. While there are lots of great reasons to do this, we will further explore the cost factor (ROI) and what that can mean to you.

What does it cost to maintain your on-premise archive?

The costs of maintaining your on-premise archive stem from continuing to keep Enterprise Vault mailboxes in place, even after onboarding your user population to Microsoft 365. Whether the delay is due to a limited budget for migration or the need to select the right vendor to support the process, the result is the same: you're still paying for infrastructure and upkeep that could instead be invested in completing the migration and unlocking real and measurable cost savings.

Here is a list of what you are paying for to maintain EV and the on-premise infrastructure to support it:

• IT Staff time to manage / update / patch / troubleshoot
• EV License Maintenance costs (if you are not paying maintenance, you are risking your data and the ability to respond to legal inquiries)
• EV SQL Server and licensing
• Enterprise Vault Servers
• Archive and Index Storage
• Legal Staff time to search, cull, and produce data for eDiscovery in two data repositories (instead of one)

Let’s take a look at an example for a fictional company – Contoso Insurance Group.  Contoso has 25,000 employees, including legacy Enterprise Vault Archives, which comprise approximately 200 TB of data.  Contoso migrated their on-premise mailboxes to Microsoft 365 approximately 1 year ago, and they are using E3 licenses for most employees.  They are currently performing eDiscovery searches in both Veritas Discovery Accelerator and Microsoft 365 Compliance Center. 

Contoso has not been able to fully realize their investment in Microsoft 365:

• Paying for E3 licenses, and not utilizing the full storage capabilities that come with E3
• Doubling eDiscovery costs/effort - their legal team needs to work in two systems to respond to discovery requests
• Postponing the decommissioning of their on-premise archives / software

Let’s assume 2 full-time employees (FTEs) are assisting with managing the on-premise solution, and storage maintenance costs are approximately $800.00/TB.

Here is the estimated spend over 3 years:

Visually, Contoso’s costs look something like this:

Contoso has already lost out on $742K of realized savings (1 year) and will continue to lose out on these savings until approximately 10 months after they have fully migrated the EV infrastructure.  Ignoring the problem for another 2 years will cost an additional $1.6MM.

Add to that the cost of paying for an unused portion of E3 license (which includes an archive mailbox):

Let’s say the “value” of the archive mailbox portion of the license is worth $3/user/month.  That equates to $3.00*25,000 or $75k/month of services being paid for but not really used.  The yearly cost is $900K.

Plugging in the typical cost of a Cloudficient Managed Migration service, this customer will realize a 3-year ROI of over 350% and breakeven in less than 10 months after the migration is complete.   

As you can see, there are real cost benefits to migrating ALL your data now.  It will allow you to:

• Reduce your Legal and IT efforts
• Decommission your on-premise archiving solution
• More fully realize your Microsoft 365 investment

If you are interested in a customized analysis of your particular situation, please contact us – we’d love to show you how we can help you avoid these costs and free your IT budget for higher value IT projects!

With unmatched next generation migration technology, Cloudficient is revolutionizing the way businesses retire legacy systems and transform their organization into the cloud. Our business constantly remains focused on client needs and creating product offerings that match them. We provide affordable services that are scalable, fast and seamless.