migration

Hybrid Azure AD Join or not?

Should I use Hybrid Azure AD Join or not?

I consulted with an MSP recently about one of their larger customers, and whether or not to implement Hybrid Azure AD Join for existing Windows workstations (joined to traditional Active Directory). The classic consultant answer of course is, "It depends." In certain cases, perhaps. But in truth and in practice,...
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Education and Governance: your weapons to combat fear and enable modern workplaces

Education and Governance: your weapons to combat fear and enable modern workplaces

I had lunch with a colleague recently who expressed skepticism over my (admittedly non-conventional) methods for migrating users from a legacy file server to OneDrive, Teams, and SharePoint. "Some things work better in Theory than they do in Practice," he says.Well, that's funny because I...
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Moving to Microsoft 365 means getting to know your data (and your business)

Moving to Microsoft 365 means getting to know your data (and your business)

Through my website's contact form, I still hear about botched migrations to Microsoft 365 on a regular basis. This is usually due to exactly one problem: ignorance about the process, as well as ignorance about the datasets being migrated, as well as ignorance about...
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Cloud vs. On-prem and the future of Managed Services

Is the on-prem model (e.g. legacy AD with file shares, Windows Server-based apps, etc.) 'better' in some cases than SaaS alternatives like Microsoft 365, GSuite, Ping, Okta, Salesforce, DropBox, or whatever? In the SMB space, I really struggle to advocate for on-prem anymore, and I mean REALLY struggle. And that's...
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The importance of starting with OneDrive

I am going to make an argument that OneDrive is the most important application for you to focus on when starting a new migration of files to Microsoft 365. Not Teams, and not SharePoint. OneDrive. I recommend starting here for a variety of reasons--and maybe not all of the ones...
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Understanding file server migrations to Microsoft 365

In my opinion, there is only one viable migration path to move data from old file servers to Microsoft 365: it has to be a user-engaged migration. IT people always ask me about tools--stuff like the SharePoint migration...
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How to migrate company file shares and mapped drives to Office 365 using the SharePoint Migration Tool

I debated on writing about this tool for a long time. Because here's the thing: most file servers in production today are just huge garbage piles, built out of years of half-completed thoughts and haphazard document collaboration. Therefore, before we get into it, I first want to cover off on...
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