When migrating to Microsoft 365, there are generally best practices that organizations should follow in order to ensure the smoothest transition. The first thing all organizations should do prior to the complete migration is to create a small set of pilot users to validate and test the process for performance issues and feedback. Through this process, organizations gain valuable information which they can use to assess and remediate any issues prior to the full migration. Once pilot user feedback has been collected and issues have been fixed, it's suggested that instead of a complete cut over event where everything is migrated at once, that the migration takes place in the incremental segments. The main benefit of using the incremental migration method is that organizations can process smaller groups of issues as they come in alongside having no impact on the user base until the hard cut over event of migration.

Since network file shares and local file shares can be disabled and redirected to SharePoint or one drive, users won't notice a difference until that cut over event occurs. These best practices generally apply to those who are doing the customer self-service method of migration as the other methods provide at least some form of guidance. So let's cover the methods and go into a bit more detail about what each entails. As mentioned in the previous lecture, there are three different options or types of migrations: customer self-service, fasttrack driven, and partner-driven. Each of these different options provides different benefits and difficulties. Understanding each of these options is important for planning your organization's migration to Microsoft 365. The customer self-service option allows the organization to utilize their own IT resources and allows them to control over the process and timing of the migration. While this option requires the most effort and maintenance, you do gain complete control, which may be helpful for larger organizations who have resources to commit to the migration. The partner driven method on the other hand, puts the migration in the hands of the trusted partner.

This method is essentially the opposite of the self-service option as the organization gives up complete control of the migration to the partner. While the organization can work with the partner, it's ultimately in the hands of the partner, meaning that the timeframe and process is at the discretion of that partner. The final option is fasttrack driven, which kind of takes aspects of each of the other methods. Fasttrack migration to SharePoint online and one drive for business supports migration from FileShares that are SMB 2.0 and newer, a Google Workspace environment from Google Drive, box starter, business, and enterprise cloud storage, or Dropbox Standard Advanced cloud storage.

For more specifics about each environment and what the migration entails. I have listed documentation below for your review. Now, fasttrack has two different migration options depending on how many licenses an organization has. Fasttrack for organizations with 150-499 licenses and fasttrack for organizations with more than 500 licenses. Firstly, for organizations under 500 licenses, fasttrack only provides guidance on the migration process, leaving sole responsibility of the migration on the organization. In this scenario, Microsoft is completely hands off and guides organizations through the migration. While you are still responsible for the migration, you do have the support with direct guidance from Microsoft.

However, for organizations with more than 500 licenses, Microsoft provides both guidance and migration services. Alongside guidance, Microsoft also assists in configuring your environments and utilize their migration services to migrate your data. In this scenario, you can still create a schedule for Microsoft to adhere by, they will then follow that schedule and monitor and provide reports to the organization. When planning to utilize fasttrack, organizations must consider that Microsoft makes no speed guarantee for the migration and that the migration does utilize Microsoft facilities, meaning that if your organization requires certain legal or regulatory requirements, this may not be an option. And even when utilizing fasttrack, there are still expectations on the organization that you need to be aware of. For a full list of both party responsibilities during a fasttrack migration, I have linked documentation down below in the course material section for you to review.