GOOGLE WORKSPACE MAIL MIGRATION (GSUITE TO GSUITE migration)
Overview:
- G Suite to GSuite migration overview
- Security
- Performance
- Google Mail Migration Scope
- Pre-migration configuration
- Use the Cloudiway platform to migrate your mail
- Other migration options
- Troubleshooting
1. GSuite to GSuite Migration Overview
This userguide is aimed to show you how migrate your mailboxes between Google Wokspace tenant.
Cloudiway’s mail migration solution helps businesses perform elaborate technical migrations through a simple SaaS interface. As a result, mail migrations require no additional software installation or overhead, and migrations can be performed securely and quickly.
The Cloudiway platform is flexible enough to support all types of migration paths. Your migration strategy will depend on your business setup, type, and size. Whichever migration path you choose, Cloudiway provides all the essential features including automatic account provisioning, license assignment, archive migration and contact synchronization (GALSync).
Two of the most common migration strategies are cutover and staged migrations. Cutover strategies involve migrating all mailboxes over a weekend, ready for your users on Monday morning. Staged strategies provide more flexible migration options, as discussed on this page.
2. Security
For more information about security, please refer to this article.
3. Performance
For more information about migration performance, please refer to this article.
4. Google Mail Migration Scope
For more information about migration performance, please refer to this article.
4.1. What can be migrated?
When migrating between Google Workspace tenants (formerly from G Suite to G Suite), all the following mail-related items can be migrated:
- Emails
- Contacts
- Calendars
- Secondary Calendars
- Labels
- Delegations
- Rooms and resources
- Archives (each mailbox requires one separate archive license)
- Tasks
4.2. Considerations
Migration takes place between existing mailboxes. This means that mailboxes must exist in the target at the time of migration. Before starting a migration, please ensure that all mailboxes to be migrated have had their target mailbox created in the target domain (steps are included in this guide).
4.3. Audience
This guide is aimed at experienced system administrators who are capable of connecting to remote systems and using a variety of administration tools.
Although we provide support for our own products, we do not provide support for third-party products such as PowerShell or server administration of Google or Exchange.
If you are concerned you might have any difficulty completing these steps, please consider a solution with our consulting team, contactable via presales@cloudiway.com. This will ensure a fast, cost-effective, and stress-free implementation.
5. Pre-migration configuration
5.1. Before you start
Before you start, you will need to ensure you have the details outlined in the following table.
Name | Description | Location |
Cloudiway login | Stores details and provides communication between the systems you already use. | https://portal.cloudiway.com/ |
Help Center | Our extensive help center (knowledge base) is always accessible, with troubleshooting tools, samples, and more. | https://help.cloudiway.com/ |
Google API console | Required to enable APIs and to download the private key. This can be accessed via your Google Admin account. | https://console.developers.google.com |
Google Admin console | The Admin console is where administrators manage Google services for people in an organization. | https://admin.google.com |
5.2. How it works
The product uses IMAP and Google APIs calls to read the source and write to the target.
Note: all network operations are performed over TLS 1.2.
5.3. Source Prerequisites
5.3.1 Google IMAP Configuration
- Sign in to your Google Admin console using an administrator account.
- From the Admin console Home page, go to Apps > Google Workspace > Gmail > End User Access
3. Select the organizational unit you want to configure settings for. If you want to configure settings for everyone, select the top-level unit. Or, select one of the child organizational units.
4. Go to POP and IMAP access.
5. Click the pencil “edit” icon.
6. Check Enable IMAP access for all users. And Select Allow any mail client. You do not need to enable POP for Cloudiway tools to work.
7. Save your settings.5.3.2 Google feeds
To perform the migration, you need to configure the permissions (Google feeds) for the source tenant.
This article explains how to add the Google feeds:
5.4. Target Prerequisites
5.4.1. Google feeds
To perform the migration, you need to configure the permissions (Google feeds) for the target tenant.
This article explains how to add the Google feeds:
6. Use the Cloudiway platform to migrate your mail
6.1. Create your G Suite source and target connectors
For Cloudiway to migrate your email, it needs to be able to communicate with both your source and target domains. To do this, Cloudiway uses connectors, which are configured on portal.cloudiway.com. You will need to set up a connector for each source tenant you wish to migrate and each target tenant that mail should be migrated to.
Follow the steps from the page below to configure your connectors:
For large projects, it’s possible to create multiple connectors that will be used in parallel. Please contact Cloudiway consulting services if you need to set up such configuration.
6.2. Configure the global settings for migration
Now that you have set up at least one source and target connector, you’re ready to configure your global settings. Using the Cloudiway platform, this is simply a matter of selecting what you want to migrate.
From the Mails area of https://portal.cloudiway.com, click on Global Settings
Most of the options are self-explanatory.
The Convert Email Address option needs further explanation. The Convert Email Address option is switched on by default (and is best left on). When activated, this option rewrites email addresses found in the email headers, calendar items and mailbox permissions and replaces source email addresses with their corresponding target email addresses in the mapping table. Therefore, it’s important that all users exist in the mapping table before migration begins.
Click on the Save button at the bottom of the screen to update your global settings.
6.3. Import or create your users into Cloudiway platform
There are a number of ways to add users that you wish to migrate. These include:
- CSV file upload;
- Cloudiway’s Import Users tool; and,
- Create a single user.
Regardless, each user will need to be assigned a license type — Trial (limited to 100 MB), Education, Standard, Archive, or No License (used for adding users to your mapping table regardless of migration plans).
Note that importing users into Cloudiway won’t create the user mailboxes in the target tenant. See 5.5. Create your user mailboxes
6.3.1. Option 1: CSV file import
If you have a CSV file of all your users, you can upload the file to Cloudiway. The file must have the following fields in the header row:
FirstName;LastName;SourceEmail;TargetEmail;SourceRecipientType;TargetRecipientType;BatchName
https://help.cloudiway.com/article/how-to-fill-the-users-groups-csv-file/
1. Ensure you’re still in the Mails Migration area of portal.cloudiway.com and go to User List
6.3.2. Option 2: Get List
Cloudiway’s Get List tool helps you to retrieve mailboxes from your source tenant. There are 5 Get List tools corresponding to the different sections:
- User List: to discover only user mailboxes.
- Shared Mailboxes: to discover only shared mailboxes. In Google does not exist the concept of shared mailbox as in Office 365, so user mailboxes with delegate permissions won’t be discovered but you can import them manually to migrate delegate permissions to another Google user mailbox.
- Room Equipment: to discover only resource mailboxes.
- Distribution list: to discover only distribution lists.
- Archive: to discover only Google Vault accounts. We do not support migrate from Google Vault to Google Vault.
Go to User List, Room & Equipment or Distribution Lists sections and then click on Migration, select Get List.
The tool requires you to enter the Source and Target Pool.
Then to specify:
- The Matching Rule:
- Mail Exact Match: the source email = the target email (bob.marley@sourcedomain.com > bob.marley@sourcedomain.com)
- Keep Email Prefix Same as Source: only the domain name changed (bob.marley@sourcedomain.com > bob.marley@targetdomain.com)
- FirstName.LastName (i.e. bob.marley@targetdomain.com)
- F.LastName (i.e. b.marley@targetdomain.com)
- FLastName (i.e. bmarley@targetdomain.com)
- LastNameF (i.e. marleyb@targetdomain.com)
- The Target Domain.
It will then add new users to the User List. You can monitor the progress of this task in the User List: Get List Logs.
6.3.3. Option 3: Create a single user
Many of our first-time customers create a single user for testing purposes. This provides a means of watching the migration process without affecting all users.
Click on MANAGE > Create User and enter the following details:
For more information regarding the different fields, check out this article. Repeat the process for any more users you’d like to create.
6.4. Recreate your resources (using provisioning)
The Cloudiway platform provides a free resource creation tool to customers performing mail migrations. Recreate rooms and equipment using the steps below.
From the same Mail Migration area, click on Global Actions
In the Migrate Rooms section, click on START.
Select your Source that contains the rooms and equipment to be provisioned, click on START.
You will see a Scheduled status, and Completed when the process is finished.
Click on the User List sub-menu of the Mail Migration area and verify that all resources have been created in the User List.
6.5. Activate and monitor your migration
Cloudiway is an incremental migration platform that supports delta passes. Every time you restart the migration of a mailbox, only items that haven’t already been copied to the target will be migrated and for those already migrated items that have been modified in the source will be updated in the target. The platform, therefore, does not duplicate items in the target, just updates them.
The migration strategy usually consists of at least 2 migration passes, one before the cutover and another pass after the cutover:
- 1st migration pass: which migrates the majority of the mailbox. Select mailboxes, click on MIGRATION, then the Start button. Explained below in more detail.
- Cutover: You have to manually remove the domain from the source tenant, attach it to the target tenant and change the MX record in your DNS server. This is not automated by Cloudiway.
- 2nd migration pass, delta pass: which migrates what hasn’t been migrated and updates modified items. Select mailboxes, click on MIGRATION, then the Start button. Explained below in more detail.
- 3rd migration pass, delta pass: 24 hours after cutover you can submit an additional delta pass to make sure no residual email is left behind due to DNS propagation delays. Select mailboxes, click on MIGRATION, then the Start button. Explained below in more detail.
You can submit as many migration passes as you want for 3 months and until consuming the amount of GBs allowed by the assigned licenses but usually, you only need one before the cutover and another after the cutover. Find out more about the delta migration passes:
What a migration pass takes to complete depends on a lot of factors. Find out more about the migration performance:
If you have moved the source domain and need to perform one more delta pass, the Switch Domain global action will need to be used:
You can create user batches from the Batches tab to easily group subset of mailboxes. Click on the + icon and enter a batch name:
After creating the different batch, under Users tab, select the users you want to assign to a specific batch, click on BATCH button and Add to Batch:
To start your migration, select the users or batch you wish to migrate.
- For users, under Users tab, select all the users you want to submit and click on MIGRATION, then the Start button.
- For user batch, under Batches tab, select the user batch you want to submit and click on MIGRATION, then the Start button.
Your migrations will be scheduled and will begin as soon as cloud resources are available.
NOTE: When migrating by user batches during a long period of time you may want to enable email forwarders.
For more information, please see this article:
7. Other migration options
7.1. Mailbox permissions migration
You can migrate mailbox permissions for mailboxes through the Cloudiway platform.
Migration of permission isn’t performed during the migration of the mailboxes but through a dedicated job.
The migration of the permissions will migrate permissions on the mailboxes, on the primary and secondary calendars.
If permissions were applied to mail-enabled security group, the mail enable security group must exist at the destination for the permission to be applied correctly.
Click on User List, select the users, go to MIGRATION, then click on Migrate Permissions
NOTE: Once you start the process of permissions migration, it cannot be stopped.
8. Troubleshooting
Cloudiway provides an extensive Help Center, also known as knowledge base, with many resources, including common error messages, guides, and downloads.
Please visit the Help Center here (where you can search for keywords or read through topics): https://help.cloudiway.com/
The Help Center also contains information on how you can ask for further support.