OUR SERVICES
Tenant-to-tenant migration
Fast, smooth and secure tenant migrations that minimise user disruption and maximise business returns.
Cloud Essentials is a specialist tenant migration partner for organisations that need to protect security, governance and business continuity through a complex move.
The Cloud Essentials team have shown they are a partner, not just a supplier. The company we acquired advised that the IT integration project was the most successful part of their conversion to join us, which is a reflection on everyone involved.
Let our skilled migration team help you effortlessly navigate the challenges of today’s migration with an eye on optimising your target environment for an even more successful tomorrow.
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Your needs
Minimise business disruption
Keep users productive with managed coexistence, proven runbooks, structured change management, and a tried-and-tested migration methodology.
Lay the right security and governance foundations
Establish a secure, well-governed target tenant shaped by Microsoft security and governance best practice to support both immediate migration success and long-term Microsoft 365 value.
A smooth migration with no surprises
Good upfront planning helps uncover dependencies, reduce risk, and create a smoother path through the migration.
Move everything through one partner
Migrate Exchange, Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint, identity, and security configuration through one coordinated, end-to-end approach.
Our solution
Our aim is to go beyond solving your immediate migration challenges to maximise your cloud efficiencies, ensure robust security and enhance your data governance and compliance postures moving forward.
We can migrate:
– Exchange Online Mailboxes
– SharePoint and OneDrive content
– Microsoft Teams and collaboration data
– Identities, permissions, devices and domains
We have the expertise to handle migration complexity, including:
- Tens of thousands of users and terabytes of data
- Global organisations with multiple geographies and sensitive data
- Hybrid environments with on-prem and cloud considerations
- Complicated co-dependencies outside project control
- Inconsistent security and governance settings
- Co-existence required from day 1
Talk to our Office 365 tenant to tenant migration experts
Our approach
Scope
Clarify workloads, coexistence needs, and delivery timelines to shape the right migration path.
Security and governance
Assessment to unpack your data governance considerations, vulnerabilities, potential cost savings and best practices
Design
Build a migration plan tailored to your environment and goals.
Test
Validate the approach through pilot testing and feedback.
Migrate
Manage the migration through a controlled, carefully sequenced approach.
Optimise
Resolve issues, fine-tune performance, and identify opportunities to maximise the benefits of the new environment.
Job well done! I appreciate your knowledge, expertise, and teamwork/engagement which contributed to a successful migration.
Over 10 tenant migrations in 6 years would challenge even the most experienced IT teams, but with Cloud Essentials at our side, it’s been a smooth, controlled process every time. Their depth of expertise, collaborative approach, and ability to operate as an extension of our team have been invaluable in navigating the complexities of large-scale migrations with the least possible disruption to the business.
Cloud Essentials delivered over ten complex Microsoft 365 tenant-to-tenant migrations over a six-year partnership – moving over 1 Petabyte of data.
Coexistence was a critical requirement, ensuring users across legacy and target environments could communicate and collaborate from day one. Time zone differences, large data volumes, and evolving governance and security configurations added further layers of complexity.
Want to discuss your migration options with an expert?
Why choose Cloud Essentials
We help organisations transition to a new Microsoft tenant with greater control, lower risk, and the specialist expertise needed to get complex migrations right.
A delivery model built for quality and value
We operate as a UK business, backed by a highly skilled South Africa-based delivery team – giving clients outstanding value, close collaboration, and expert migration support.
Proven experience across complex tenant migrations
We’ve been migrating content to Microsoft environments for over 15 years. We’re a solution partner with security and modern work specialisations and bring our experience and best practice to every engagement.
Governance, compliance and security best practice
We advise on governance, compliance, and security best practice throughout the migration to help protect sensitive data, reduce risk, and establish a well-governed target tenant from day one.
Practical user support through transition
We minimise disruption by helping internal teams prepare for change with clear communication, detailed planning, and a smooth path through the transition.
Frequently Asked Questions
We've compiled common questions we get asked about tenant migration and shared our experts' advice:
Tenant-to-tenant migration is the process of moving users, workloads (e.g. mailboxes, SharePoint, Teams etc.) and/or content from one Microsoft 365 tenant to another. It is frequently required as part of a merger, acquisition or divestiture and can be both complex and nuanced, often benefiting from the experience of a specialist partner.
The 6 biggest challenges affecting tenant-to-tenant migration in Office 365 are:
– Short notice periods and tight timelines
– Sensitivities around data access levels
– The need for multiple tools from multiple vendors
– Consolidating mismatched security and other standards (data classification labels, email archives, SharePoint Taxonomies, etc.)
– Unexpected delays caused by third-party solutions/platforms
– Merging conflicting corporate cultures with mismatched priorities.
To migrate from one Office 365 tenant to another, follow these seven steps:
Scope: Lay out your precise requirements and set your expectations and price point.
Security Baseline Analysis: Establish data governance and security procedures to ensure your target tenant is founded on robust and secure settings.
Design: Create a migration roadmap that leverages the right tools for your requirements.
Test: Pilot test with validation feedback.
Migrate: Action the migration – consider using a SaaS migration platform in Azure.
Optimise: Conduct performance optimisation and issue resolution throughout the migration.
Mature: Analyse opportunities to mature security and compliance post-migration and realise greater value from your new platform.
Proper planning makes a huge difference to the success – and cost – of a tenant-to-tenant migration. Start by analysing what you currently have and what you actually need. You may find opportunities to save costs and add value by offloading redundant third-party solutions, consolidating on-premises workloads in the cloud, and/or optimising your cloud licencing.
Next, you’ll need to define what you want to end up with at the end of the migration. Remember: a need for speed doesn’t always mean defaulting to the “lowest common denominator”. It’s entirely possible to expedite a migration without jeopardising usability, governance or security, and still achieve an optimal environment in the medium to long term.
The amount of time a tenant-to-tenant migration takes depends largely on how many users and how much data you’re working with, and whether there are any throttling limits to be aware of. Important timeline considerations include licence renewal deadlines to meet (or avoid), and whether phasing should be used to reduce user disruption and improve overall user experience.
There is no one-size-fits-all tenant-to-tenant migration tool. Much will depend on the specific functionality you need. In most cases, essential capabilities to look out for in your chosen solution(s) include: pre-migration data mapping; migration automation; intuitive reporting dashboards with effective error flagging; multi-workload handling (including non-Office 354 workloads); and the ability to use a phased (rather than “big bang”) migration approach.
Co-existence during tenant-to-tenant migrations is a way of enabling teams from source and target tenants to communicate and collaborate as one entity before their environments have been fully integrated. It’s a great way to avoid downtime while migrating users and data in strategic batches, and makes it possible for a merger or acquisition to be presented as a fait accompli while the nitty gritty takes place behind the scenes.
A well-planned and well-run tenant-to-tenant migration should require minimal user intervention and result in little to no down time. That said, users often require some support in adjusting to their new environment. In this, a clear communication strategy can be pivotal, helping to manage user expectations, explain upcoming changes and required actions, and drum up excitement for any new features and functionality.
From Our Clients
Our experience
We’ve been around the migration block a few times – here are a few of our project highlights.
Expert insights
Read our insider tips on navigating complex tenant migrations
