Pat,
The last we looked into, Microsoft said it wasn’t as much of a herculean task
to migrate from O365 business to government as it used to be.
However, it wasn’t really practical either. In fact, for us, I would consider
it an impossibility.
The City of Bend migrated from an on-premise Lotus Notes platform to O365 in
2012. Liftoff helped us do that and they were fantastic.
Back then when we migrated to O365, it was strongly discouraged by Liftoff to
migrate into the O365 government cloud. It had issues and lots of limitations,
we were told.
For new agencies looking into O365 that are concerned about getting the CJIS
check mark, it’s a no brainer. (Well, that’s only because the gov cloud
appears to offer more O365 services than they did just two years ago. Two
years ago, I would have said they like the idea because they don’t know what
they’re going to be missing because they’ve never used it before.)
When we last talked to Microsoft and asked for quotes on migrating us to the
government cloud was about 1-1/2 to 2 years ago now.
And for moving everyone in the City (700 accounts roughly, let’s say), it was
over $100,000. To just move the Police Department was going to be $60,000.
We were told then that it wasn’t actually a simple migration (yet not as
difficult as years prior). Like, they didn’t flip a switch and suddenly the
next morning we wake up to find that our data was moved from one set of servers
at Data Center A in the business cloud to another set of servers inside a
chained-link fence in Data Center A in the gov cloud.
On paper, it sounds simple. But then when you get into conversations with
Microsoft and the migration vendor, once they learn about your current
environment and get into the details, then you find out that it’s going to be a
lot of work and there’s going to be loss of functionality.
Even though they have migration tools to automate it and make it easier, not
everything was going to migrate automatically after all due to numerous nuances
and limitations.
We were told, for example, we would have to re-create every SharePoint site in
the government cloud! Oh, is that all?
And we were told that all of our workflows we had built through our third party
vendor, K2, would have to be re-created.
I even think those workflows created with the native Flow app would have to be
re-done. Hmmm.
There was more, but those alone were going to be extremely difficult and time
consuming to re-do manually.
We would have had to pretty much clear the technology project slate and focus
almost entirely on the migration project to be able to pull it off. Even then,
we would be unable to do many of the things we had become accustomed to doing
and relying upon for daily business operations.
So standing back and really looking at the feasibility of a migration from
business O365 to government, it wasn’t realistic.
This might sound controversial, as well, but as far as security goes, I don’t
see the benefit at all in going to the O365 gov cloud.
You lose functionality for a CJIS check box.
I also don’t think the O365 gov cloud is more secure either.
If Microsoft can’t provide the same functionality in the gov cloud as they can
in the business cloud, do you really think they’re actually patching and
monitoring the gov cloud as well as the business cloud? I mean, the gov cloud
is certainly not getting the same resources allocated to it by Microsoft as the
business cloud, that’s clear.
I could go on, but what’s really different about the government cloud?
Background checks.
Who cares.
A properly secured O365 tenant isn’t going to get compromised by an unvetted
data center worker or admin. It doesn’t work that way. And vetting Microsoft
staff is not a guarantee at all.
Here’s what does matter—the location of the data. And business O365 data is
kept in the States. I have a letter from Microsoft attesting to that.
Anyhow, that’s my thoughts on migrating from business O365 to government. 😉
[cid:image001.png@01D1BCB4.A3DA1A50]
Aric Ptomey
Public Safety Systems Manager | City of Bend Police Department
O: 541-322-6393 | M: 541-647-0614 | Join BPD – Learn
More<https://www.bendoregon.gov/government/departments/police/employment-police>
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From: oagitm-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <oagitm-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of
Dan Hendrix
Sent: Friday, April 2, 2021 2:33 PM
To: Kevin.Furlong@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; 'pat.hartley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'
<pat.hartley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; OAGITM <oagitm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [oagitm] Re: Microsoft Office 365 Environment Conversion
CAUTION: External Email. Use caution when opening attachments, clicking links,
or responding to this email.
Pat,
The City of Ashland started in the O365 gov tenant, so I can’t speak to the
private-to-gov transition, but we contracted with a consultant called Lift Off
(back in 2015) to get from on-prem to the gov cloud, and I was very impressed
with their work and depth of experience.
Significantly to our RFP, they had – even at that point – done migrations for a
lot of other government entities.
They steered us away from several configuration decisions that seemed
reasonable, but that we would have later regretted.
This is my (possibly dated) contact info, so that may give you another option,
if you need to solicit quotes:
Ron Braatz, President
[cid:image004.png@01CC94BA.0E7665D0]
410.419.1591
rbraatz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:rbraatz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
http://www.liftoffonline.com<https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.liftoffonline.com%2F&data=04%7C01%7Captomey%40bendoregon.gov%7C83827cc762e9430be36b08d8f61edd66%7C1c15334815ef4708aebf1e25e57dc400%7C0%7C0%7C637529960015342711%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=t3UuXPvOOqV7W7ZOphN6GaxqbnLUuvsaxSz2Z1ltwBw%3D&reserved=0>
…and, yes, we also used MigrationWiz heavily and found it worked nearly
flawlessly, for us.
Thanks,
--Dan
Dan Hendrix
Information Systems Manager
City of Ashland Information Technology Department
90 N. Mountain Avenue, Ashland, Oregon 97520
Phone: 541-552-2441 TTY: 800-735-2900
This email transmission is official business of the City of Ashland, and is
subject to the Oregon Public Records Law for disclosure and retention. If you
have received this message in error, please contact me at 541-552-2441
From: oagitm-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:oagitm-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<oagitm-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:oagitm-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> On Behalf Of
Kevin Furlong
Sent: Friday, April 2, 2021 1:23 PM
To: 'pat.hartley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'
<pat.hartley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:pat.hartley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>>; OAGITM
<oagitm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:oagitm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>>
Subject: [oagitm] Re: Microsoft Office 365 Environment Conversion
[EXTERNAL SENDER]
It can be done. Deschutes County will be doing this for our District Attorney
accounts (whom jumped into cloud several years ago) and now will be rejoining
the rest of the County in a gov-cloud tenant. We are using a consultant
company (Compunet.biz) to help with our entire transition into the cloud. For
cloud-to-cloud migrations the tool to use is called “MigrationWiz” by
Bititan.com
Its priced mostly per mailbox but when that doesn’t make sense (sharepoint,
Pubilc Folders) then its by Gb.
Like I say, we haven’t used it yet, but the consultants say it’s the bomb for
moving cloud data.
.KevinF.
541-388-6529
From: oagitm-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:oagitm-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<oagitm-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:oagitm-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> On Behalf Of
Pat Hartley
Sent: Thursday, April 1, 2021 1:41 PM
To: OAGITM <oagitm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:oagitm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>>
Subject: [oagitm] Microsoft Office 365 Environment Conversion
[EXTERNAL EMAIL]
________________________________
Hey folks, I hope this email finds everyone well and safe!
I have a question, that I think I may have asked several years ago, but it has
dropped back on my plate so I thought Id ask again to see if the answer has
changed.
Does anyone know of any organization who has successfully converted from the
Office 365 business cloud to the Gov cloud?
Being an early adopter, before there even was a government cloud, has had both
pros and cons. Since we support Police here in Gresham, we sometimes bump into
CJIS constraints in our current environment.
Just time to ask again. Thanks everyone!
~Pat
Patrick H. Hartley
Pronouns | he, him, his
Director | City of
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