How to Migrate Enterprise Vault to Office 365 Cloud – A Guide to Follow

When businesses that manage their email communication through an on-premise system want to adopt the Microsoft cloud, they face significant challenges. One such major hurdle is not knowing how to migrate Enterprise Vault to Office 365. As Veritas EV itself is not a complete mail service, but an add-on to hold legacy email conversations. Regular pathways (IMAP to IMAP) that are available for other platforms are simply not present in this case.

In other words, you cannot perform a direct account-to-account transfer of data. Although Veritas EV can use and export PST files (the data type used by the Outlook Desktop client to store email), manually moving those files ultimately violates critical compliance requirements.
Given that it’s so difficult to move from Exchange Vault to Office 365, it becomes important to understand why any organization would go through all this trouble in the first place.

Why Companies Choose to Migrate Enterprise Vault to Office 365?

Enterprise Vault, a Veritas product, has been meeting the archiving and storage needs of organizations worldwide for decades. However, as systems evolve and new requirements emerge, the on-premises systems are unable to keep up.

Upgrading to the cloud solves this issue.

You free yourself from constant hardware issues/upgrades/scaling up or down when demand spikes or dries up.
Cost reduction is visible from the first day. IT teams can become leaner and spend more time addressing user issues. Increasing the overall productivity.

With Office 365 cloud, the advantages don’t end at hardware management independence. You also get full access to the state-of-the-art business suite apps. There are more than 50 different applications that cover all possible business requirements. Moreover, you also get to leverage the power of AI through agents developed by Microsoft in your workflow.

All of this is just a tiny glimpse of the advantages that you get on shifting your organization to O365. Let us now see what method you can use to make the change on your own.

Should I Manually Shift Veritas EV to the O365 Cloud?

I had told you earlier that it is possible to get Veritas Enterprise Vault data in PST format, and we already know the best method for importing PST to Office 365. So solution seems simple, right? No, there lies our biggest problem. How do we ensure the method we are using is compliant with the rules and regulations of our industry?

Regardless of that issue, I will explain to you the steps you can attempt on your own. The entire process is divided into two parts. First, we pull the data from the archive, then push it into the cloud.

Get Data Out from Veritas EV in Microsoft Acceptable Format

The Basic GUI-based steps are as follows

Step 1. Log in to the EV Server >> On your left-hand pane, click on the Archives node >> Right-click >> Export (This launches the Export Archive Wizard)

Step 2. Select Export Archives to PST and click Next.

Step 3. Choose the archive you want to export and click Next.

Step 4. Specify Export Scope and Retention Category (Here you also have the option to remove these items from the archive after you export. Use it if you want to clear the storage.) Click Next.

Step 5. Set PST File Destination. You may have to make a UNC path; a regular folder won’t work. Click Next.

Step 6. Change the maximum PST file size from its default value (600 MB). Note: If a file cannot accommodate the entire vault, the wizard creates a numbered sequence of files (e.g., Inbox 1, Inbox 2 …).

Step 7. Choose the PST format. Click Next.

Step 8. Review and if everything is as per your requirements, start Export.

Use PowerShell and Migrate Enterprise Vault to Office 365 

Step 1. Make a list of archive IDs. To do this, open a new instance of Enterprise Vault Management Shell. Then type:

Get-EVArchive | Select-Object ArchiveId | Out-File C:\Path\To\ArchiveIDs.txt

Replace the placeholder with the correct path. This cmdlet creates a text file containing the archive IDs that we will use in our other scripts.

Step 2. Create a PowerShell script that loops through all the IDs and exports the data in PST. It should look something like this:

$ArchiveList = Get-Content C:\Path\To\ArchiveIDs.txt

foreach ($ArchiveID in $ArchiveList) {

    Export-EVArchive -ArchiveId $ArchiveID -OutputDirectory "C:\PSTExports\$ArchiveID" -Format PST -MaxPSTSizeMB 51200

}

These are the key parameters you must use in your script:

• –ArchiveId: Identifies users from the Veritas EV archive.
• –OutputDirectory: Path to save PST files.
• –Format: Must be PST.
• –MaxPSTSizeMB: Maximum size of each PST file must be smaller than the amount of space in your account; otherwise, you risk a service stoppage.

Put the Enterprise Vault Data in Office 365 Accounts

Like the export part, here also, you have multiple ways to complete this task. We will explain every method in brief and also outline the disadvantages to make you fully aware of the risks.
Those who opt for Network upload must do the following:

• Step 1. Open the Microsoft Purview compliance portal and start a new PST import job.
• Step 2. To upload the data, make use of the SAS URL plus the AzCopy tool. This puts your PST in a temporary Azure cloud storage.
• Step 3. Use a CSV-style mapping to join the PST with its mailbox. From there, follow the on-screen instructions to move the data.

To migrate Enterprise Vault to Office 365 with Drive Shipping, you do this:

• Step 1. Use the WAImportExport tool to copy PST files to a hard drive. Then encrypt all the drives with BitLocker.
• Step 2. Log in to the Microsoft Purview compliance portal and set up a drive shipping import job. You will receive an address where you have to send the drives via mail.
• Step 3. Microsoft receives the encrypted hard drives (this can take anywhere from 3 to 7 days) and uploads your files.

The Outlook Classic Client offers a PST Import mechanism:

• Step 1. Open Outlook >> Select File >> Open & Export >> Import/Export.
• Step 2. A small window appears; there, choose “Import from another program or file,” then select “Outlook Data File (.pst)”.
• Step 3. Browse to your PST file, select a destination folder in your mailbox, decide how to handle duplicates, and hit Finish.

Common issues and errors you face regardless of the manual upload type you choose:

• File size restrictions (often 20-50 GB)
• PST file corruption.
• Slow import speeds.

How to Migrate Enterprise Vault to Office 365 Professionally?

The method to get out the data from Veritas EV stays the same. However, the next stage, which is the way you put the data into Office 365 cloud, changes significantly. Introducing the SysTools Import PST to Office 365 tool.

Free Download Purchase Now

The only solution you need to conduct a compliance-critical migration from Enterprise Vault to Office 365.

The best part about this tool is that you can use it to directly deposit the Veritas EV data into the O365 archive mailbox. No need to first add the mails to the active mailbox, then wait for the archiving rules to kick in. Just plain and simple transfer from offline to online archive. You also get to decide what part of the Veritas EV gets in and what is left behind using the dedicated date filter.

With this tool at their disposal, admins can transfer the data of 10 users simultaneously. User-level filtering and single admin account control mode are other major advantages. Follow the steps below and put your data where it is supposed to be.

Steps to Migrate Veritas Enterprise Vault to O365 with a Tool

Step 1. Download and launch the tool that will migrate Enterprise Vault to Office 365 on your system. Choose Outlook (for PST) as your source and Office 365 or Office 365 Archive as the Destination.

Step 2. Under the Workload section, mark the check box next to Emails and apply a Date filter if you need a more precise import. Press Next.

Step 3. On the source screen, you have to browse for the parent folder that contains the Enterprise EV now in PST format. Then validate and press Next.

Step 4. On the destination screen, add the Office 365 admin details and application ID, then Validate and Press Next.

Step 5. Mapping screen is where you attach the user list. You can fetch, Import, or download a Template and upload it to add users.

Step 6. See the user list, then mark the boxes next to them to prioritize, validate, and hit Start Import.

Why Using This Tool is Better than Manual Import?

On comparing both methods, the reasons become obvious as to why this tool is the best option to migrate Enterprise Vault to Office 365: The tool is faster, takes less effort, and above all, is critically compliant. These are just the surface-level upgrades you get on choosing the right path. Let me tell you about even more hidden advantages that you receive:
You control how many accounts are processed simultaneously. With a concurrency slider, you can fine-tune the data import.

Witness real-time item count. This tool has a live counter that tells you how much of your data has been deposited in its intended location.

Perform second level of import. If some data is left in the first run, use retry failed. If there is new, never-seen-before data, you can delta import. Moreover, you can redo the entire import again in case of a major failure.

Get reports at the end of every import session. This tool creates two separate reports: one which summarises the entire session, and another that covers all the detailed account-level nuances.

Admins don’t need the user account credentials to deposit the data. They can just use the Application ID and start the import.

Also Read: How to import PST to Archive Mailbox?

Conclusion

Here in this blog, we saw what you have to do to migrate Enterprise Vault to Office 365 cloud. You first have to get the data out of Veritas EV, for which you can use either the GUI options or the PowerShell cmdlets. Once you have the data in Office 365 compliant format, use Classic Outlook’s import mechanism, Network Upload, or load up the PST into a hard drive and ship it over to Microsoft. As an alternative to the manual methods, we told you about an import utility that requires no complex setups or hardware procurement and can work directly from your workstation.