Migrating from legacy file servers to Box

Couchdrop
Couchdrop
Published in
3 min readDec 15, 2020

Box is a leader when it comes to cloud content and governance. It integrates with the Google and Microsoft ecosystems, but also offers in depth reporting and compliance functionality. Transitioning from local infrastructure such as a traditional file server or NAS can be daunting and add additional complexity, especially when it comes to migrating hundreds to thousands of users and the content that comes with them. Migrating to Box doesn’t have to be scary, or over complicated — this is where tools such as Movebot can help and alleviate the complexity.

migrate file server to box

When migrating from on-premise traditional file servers Movebot provides an executable agent that doesn’t need to be installed and connects to Movebot without the need to worry about firewalls or complex configurations. Once connected, it is as if you are using another cloud endpoint, it behaves the same way and encrypts your data in transfer using HTTPS and offers checksum technology to prevent data loss.

Connecting to Box is the easy part, it’s the on-premise part that is often the challenge. With Box you simply log in through OAuth (your administrators credentials). With other providers, you often have to install heavy software, open firewalls and hassle your security team to be able to run the software. With Movebot, it’s as simple as running and executable and deleting it from your downloads folder once you are done.

Configuring the agent

When you are setting up your migration, whether is a project or a simple migration, you will need to download the executable file and copy the token key. Once downloaded, run the agent and follow the instructions.

migrate to box from file server
Adding the token to the Movebot file server agent
file server to box migration
Agent is connecting to Movebot
transfer to Box from on-premise file server
File server agent is connected to Movebot
box and file server migrations
Seeing the file server as “just another cloud”
migrating between box and file servers
Mapping folders/users to migrate

An important note, when migrating from a local file server, be sure to select a Movebot region under advanced settings to migrate from that is closest to you, this is to improve performance and also maintain data sovereignty. If you don’t see a region you require, then please reach out to the team and see if we can establish an ad-hoc region for you.

Another option that you have is the ability to run a discovery scan across your file server which simulates a migration and will show you any errors that may be encountered, a breakdown of the data and analytics of the content.

data migration simulation report
Movebot Analytics

Movebot keeps migrations simple, whether it is on-premise to the cloud, or cloud to cloud. It’s always simple, fast and cost-effective.

Head to movebot.io and begin your migration today. For a full guide on migrating from a File Server to Box head to our knowledge base.

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Originally published at https://www.movebot.io.

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