How to migrate to Google Workspace in less time and at no cost: a new guide for CISOs
Ashish Gupta
Senior Product Manager, Google Workspace
Luke Camery
Director of Product Management, Google Workspace
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SIGN UPChoosing to migrate your productivity data and tools to Google Workspace is a strategic decision for your organization. It can be a multi-step process, and we want to help leaders be equipped with a strategy ahead of time to ensure a seamless transition.
To help IT leaders, CIOs, and CISOs plan and navigate this transition, there are plenty of practical tips on data migration and interoperability in our new guide, “Migrating Your Data to Google Workspace.”
You’ll find details on the latest tools and risk management strategies and tips for how to minimize operational downtime, protect sensitive information, and drive end-user adoption. Below are five key recommendations explained in greater detail in the whitepaper.
1. Define your migration strategy
Aligning your IT team, Google Cloud account team, or implementation partner around defined goals is essential for an enterprise migration. We recommend a phased deployment strategy to ensure success:
- Phase 1 (planning and core IT): Align deployment plans with Google-recommended best practices, confirm technical design, test tools, and identify key integrations.
- Phase 2 (early adopters): Roll out to 5% to 10% of users to validate the migration process, refine change management, and gather user feedback.
- Phase 3 (global go-live): Transition the remainder of the organization with support, role-specific training, and department champions.
2. Plan and mitigate risks proactively
Tackling potential roadblocks early keeps your timeline intact and avoids unnecessary disruptions. Focus on data audits and governance — taking inventory of legacy files to flag any sensitive content before moving it — and ensure seamless identity management with dual-delivery email routing and directory sync. Running small pilot migrations with representative data is also a great way to verify permissions and expected speed before doing the full cutover.
3. Prepare for your migration with the Migration Planner
After analyzing your environment's specific data types, size, and distribution, Migration Planner delivers a granular, high-confidence ETA based on your organization’s specific data corpus. This data-driven foundation allows your team to execute a phased, batch-optimized migration — with rigorous testing and validation incorporated into the transition to help ensure business continuity.
Migration Planner dashboard showing data corpus metrics (users, emails, calendar events, contacts), timeline estimates, and the batch execution plan.
4. Migrate your data with data import
When your organization is ready to execute the migration, Workspace's cloud-native data import tool is available at no cost and delivers transfers up to five times faster than legacy alternatives. Data is processed entirely in memory on Google's hardened infrastructure to help reduce inherent vulnerabilities and exposure risks.
Admin console view of the data import tool.
5. Simplify the move with expert assistance and resources
If you want extra support along the way, you can also review the technical migration resources or engage trusted Workspace partners. They offer hands-on architectural design, dedicated technical account management, and tailored training programs to help keep business disruptions to a minimum and ensure a smooth transition for your IT team and end users.
Start migrating your data today
Read the full whitepaper to start building your migration strategy, or contact your Google Cloud account representative to get started today.
