Migrating Enterprise Vault to Microsoft 365
Enterprise Vault migrations succeed when archive, shortcuts, journal data, compliance, and validation are planned together. Migrating from EV to Microsoft? Bluesource is your expert.
Enterprise Vault to Microsoft 365
Enterprise Vault
As of May 2026, Enterprise Vault (EV), is a standalone, dedicated business unit of Cloud Software Group. Enterprise Vault Complete offers on-premises solutions for enterprise archiving, compliance, and governance. Cloud-based archiving solutions remain under the Arctera Unified Platform.
The change to an all-in-one solution might not be the best option for some organizations. Microsoft365 is one alternative for data archiving.
Microsoft 365
Microsoft 365 includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and cloud services such as OneDrive, SharePoint, and Exchange Online. Bluesource offers optimization, support, consulting, and training across the Microsoft ecosystem.
Bluesource is a proud Microsoft Solutions Partner in four categories: Support Services, Security, Modern Work, and Infrastructure: Azure.
Why Choose Bluesource for Your EV to Microsoft 365 Migration
Every Enterprise Vault migration carries the same risk: managing to move all the data without breaking shortcuts, losing metadata, or missing compliance requirements. Bluesource plans your migration end-to-end, from scoping through reconciliation, so nothing is left to chance.
Proven at Scale
Purpose-built technology
Bluesource’s proprietary ArchiveMASH™ migration software supports over 62 data sources. That’s more than other common platforms, including Transvault.
Compliance-first approach
Our migration process is built alongside our eDiscovery and compliance services. Retention policies, legal hold data, and journal archives remain defensible.
Enterprise Vault vs. Microsoft
Keep Enterprise Vault
- You archive mixed sources: file shares, SharePoint on-prem, Bloomberg, IM, or legacy Notes/Domino, etc.
- You have deep, custom retention and legal hold workflows built around Enterprise Vault’s policies.
- Regulatory or data-residency rules keep archived mail out of Microsoft’s cloud entirely.
- You’re mid-contract and the migration hasn’t been budgeted yet.
Move to Microsoft 365
- Exchange/email is the bulk of what’s archived, and everyone’s mailbox already lives in Exchange Online.
- You want eDiscovery, retention, and Communication Compliance in one admin surface instead of two.
- You’re paying to keep Enterprise Vault infrastructure alive mainly out of inertia.
- Copilot and other M365 tools need to search across live and archived content together.
| Feature | Enterprise Vault | Microsoft 365 |
|---|---|---|
| Deployment | On-premises or hybrid, self-managed storage and servers, or Veritas-hosted cloud editions. | Fully cloud-native, included with qualifying Microsoft 365 / Office 365 plans. |
| Sources Archived | Exchange, Notes/Domino, files, SharePoint, IM, Bloomberg, and other third-party sources via connectors/td> | Exchange Online natively; Teams, SharePoint, and OneDrive content through Purview's unified retention and eDiscovery. |
| Retention & Compliance | Granular, highly configurable retention categories built up over many product versions. | Purview retention policies and labels, applied consistently across mail, Teams, and files. |
| eDiscovery | Enterprise Vault Discovery Accelerator / Compliance Accelerator, run as a separate module. | Purview eDiscovery (Standard and Premium), searching live and archived content together. |
| Search & Access | Vault Cache and search index managed by IT; performance depends on infrastructure sizing | Native Outlook and OWA search across the mailbox and In-Place Archive, no separate index to manage. |
| Admin Overhead | Dedicated servers, storage, patching, and Veritas licensing to maintain. | Managed by Microsoft; admin effort shifts to policy configuration rather than infrastructure. |
| Best For | Large, heterogeneous archives with long-standing custom workflows. | Mailbox-heavy environments already standardized on Microsoft 365. |
Prepare your Migration Plan
EV to Microsoft Workflow Overview
Active Archiving is Disabled
Exchange Mailboxes Moved
Enterprise Vault Archive Migration Starts
Shortcuts Converted
EV to Microsoft FAQs
Will EV items be accessible during the migration?
Yes, shortcuts will continue to work during an Enterprise Vault to Microsoft 365 migration as long as EV is available. The EV search page is also available.
Is the EV folder structure maintained during migration?
Yes. The goal is to put everything back how it was. If an archived item has a shortcut, the shortcut in Exchange Online is replaced by the full item.
If there is no shortcut, we can either hide the item from the user or put it in the online archive. This prevents items from appearing where the user doesn’t expect it.
What is the impact on my end-users?
Impact on end users is minimal. With Enterprise Vault migrations, all items are migrated and converted in the background with no user intervention. Users will need to restart Outlook for Exchange to Exchange Online migrations.
Will the EV Outlook add-in continue to work?
Once the mailbox has been moved from Exchange to Exchange Online, the add-in will stop working only if the Outlook profile is recreated or EVReset.exe is used. Otherwise, it will continue to work.
How fast can we move our archive from EV to Microsoft 365?
Everyone’s favorite answer: “It depends.” The actual timeline depends on several factors specific to your migration:
- Microsoft’s ingestion throttling policies
- Whether migration infrastructure is hosted on-premises or in the cloud
- Available network bandwidth
- Load on the legacy EV environment during business hours
- The performance of the storage subsystem the EV archive sits on
- How migration is sequenced against other project work, like target environment setup
While we can’t control the external factors, we can control our migration process. Bluesource starts every engagement with a Scoping phase that includes a proof-of-concept, so you get a realistic timeline estimate for your project rather than a generic industry number.
We built ArchiveMASH for speed. When all the pieces align, we can migrate over 10 TB/day.
Our Migration Process
Scoping
Your environment is accurately sized
Setup
Software is installed; Test Migration Performed
Reconciliation
Chain of Custody Provided; Validation
Production
Data is continuously moved until complete
