Office 365 Import Service available

Todd Sweetser

Hi Cloud Sellers!

There is a service now available in preview that can potentially help when the customer has quite a bit of data (either email or files) and a limited connection to the internet. This is called the Office 365 Import Service.

Use Office 365 Import service to migrate PST files.

There are two components available, first is related to E-Mail data and was released to preview last May 2015. This service provides two new options for speeding up the process of importing PST files into Exchange Online mailboxes:

  • Option 1: For smaller sets of data, we are enabling network uploads of PST files to Microsoft servers, which we then import into Exchange Online mailboxes.
  • Option 2: For larger datasets, you can copy PST archive files onto hard drives and mail them directly to Microsoft datacenters. Once we receive the drives, we copy the PST files to internal servers and then import the mail into Exchange Online mailboxes.

Both of these options use our internal datacenter network, with significantly faster throughput and lower latency. For more details see blog post announcing service as well as documentation.

Use Office 365 Import Service for SPO Migration.

The next component is related to migrating user and company files to SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business and was announced today on the Office blog post here.  The Office 365 Import Service enhances the document migration experience to SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business by making it:

  • Fast—Save time in migrating data to Office 365 by copying it to hard drives and shipping them rather than using the network to upload large amounts of data. However, if you prefer to use the network, especially for uploading smaller data sets, our new migration pipeline is faster than traditional migration methods by an order of magnitude.
  • Simple—A free tool is available to package up your on-premises SharePoint or file share content and prepare it to be imported into Office 365.

Note that the most common question today is “How much does this cost?” Per the FAQ on above posts, there is no cost to participate in the preview, which is available now. After preview, Office 365 customers will be able to purchase the service through a separate Office 365 offer.

Be sure and see all of the pertinent documentation on the Office 365 Import Service information page.

Thanks, and good selling!