How STIHL migrated 12 TB of content to SharePoint Online and manages permissions with ShareGate

The challenges

Migrating 12 TB of data to the cloud

STIHL was approaching end of life for its SharePoint 2013 installation. Rather than implement a more recent on-prem version of SharePoint, they decided to migrate to the cloud and SharePoint Online. 

But with over 40 global subsidiaries and thousands of users, it was an enormous task. 

Senior Inhouse Consultant for Digital Collaboration Constanze Pretzler was a member of the team in charge of managing data structures and permissions. She knew how essential it was to find a robust solution to help with the migration and ongoing content and permissions management. 

“It was way too much for us to do manually. We had about 12 terabytes of content in SharePoint 2013.” 

Even after removing or archiving stale content, Constanze estimated they would have 1,500 site collections to migrate. 

The stakes in migrating this content reliably were high.  

“Data loss was one concern. But it was even more important that permissions migrate accurately. Our worst-case scenario was outsiders getting hold of our content. That would be a total disaster.” 

The search for a solution

Initially, STIHL considered using the migration tool within Microsoft 365. But they worried they wouldn’t get the help they might need.  

“We checked Microsoft standard migration, but we found there was no individual support. If you had a special need, there was no chance of assistance.” 

They also considered other tools, but some industry contacts advised that those tools might lack the flexibility STIHL needed—and one contact mentioned that they’d switched to ShareGate mid-project to get the flexibility their company needed for their migration. 

As it happens, STIHL was already a ShareGate customer, using it for permissions reports, standardized reporting, and performing copies inside SharePoint 2013.  

“Before ShareGate, we used PowerShell scripting for a monthly report, and it came as a huge .csv file export. The ShareGate reports were much easier to read.” 

STIHL had also used ShareGate for a number of smaller migrations and were highly impressed with the ShareGate support team.  

“With ShareGate, the support was always outstanding. They went above and beyond compared to any other IT solution.” 

Given this previous experience with ShareGate’s management solution, STIHL decided to use ShareGate to migrate to SharePoint Online.

“Our migration to the cloud was way too much for us to do manually. We had about 12 terabytes of content in SharePoint 2013.”

The solution

Successful global migration

ShareGate’s global migration went off without a hitch. 

“We migrated 40 sites a weekend, and ran three weekends a month.” 

ShareGate’s ease of use right out of the box helped facilitate the speed of setup and migration.  

“We can easily scale it to other administrators around the world. All we had to do was give them the license key because it’s so straightforward to use. If you can use SharePoint, you can use ShareGate.” 

Complete visibility and peace of mind 

Constanze and the team liked having complete transparency in the migration process.  

“We had total visibility on what was going on, so any mistake could not go undiscovered. Our users were very eager to know if their content and permissions had been copied, and we were able to prove that everything had transferred correctly.” 

With such high stakes, this peace of mind was priceless. 

“We moved over 1,500 site collections with several broken inheritances, and uncountable groups and users nested. Getting 100% reliability was the biggest benefit we could ask for.” 

Seeing permissions were copied perfectly eliminated significant stress and labor for the IT admins. They also highly appreciated the mass check-in feature. 

“Without ShareGate, we would have had to do a lot of checking and repairing manually. It would have become very time-consuming.” 

Outstanding customer support 

Constanze and her team continued to be impressed with ShareGate’s customer support throughout the migration project and as they continue to use it today.  

“The quality and response time of the support team is really awesome. If they need to follow up later to give you a complete answer, you always get status updates.” 

Another aspect that impressed Constanze was the proactive nature of ShareGate’s development team.   

“They always listen to us. Each product update often brings new functionality that we had just mentioned in conversation.” 

Ongoing content management 

In between large migration projects, STIHL continues to use ShareGate to copy and move large amounts of content as needed. 

“Sometimes large amounts of content need to be copied from SharePoint A to SharePoint B, or a list needs to be copied, or content needs to be moved. With ShareGate, we can easily do this for our users when there are too many items for them to move or copy themselves.” 

Management of permissions and inheritance 

Constanze and her team also use ShareGate’s Permissions Matrix Report to help users keep track of their content permissions and inheritance. 

“We offer the permission matrix report as a service to help site owners get a full overview. The requests are mainly about broken permission inheritance and keeping track of complicated permissions.” 

Up next, STIHL will use ShareGate to replace all of their collaboration file shares with SharePoint Online, which will be an even bigger migration. But they’re confident that ShareGate is up to the task.

“We offer the permission matrix report as a service to help site owners get a full overview. The requests are mainly about broken permission inheritance and keeping track of complicated permissions.”

The results

Data migration and ongoing permissions management

By leveraging ShareGate, STIHL’s data collaboration team was able to migrate 12 terabytes of content and 1,500 site collections.  

They completed the project without any lost content or permission breaches. 

“From July of the first year to August of the second, we migrated 1,500 site collections. ShareGate works.” 

Outside of content migrations, STIHL uses ShareGate to manage permissions as well as copy and move large volumes of content.  

Constanze foresees that STIHL’s relationship with ShareGate will continue to expand. For example, she and her team are currently working on a project to implement Microsoft Teams, and they’re considering using ShareGate to manage that content. 

More immediately, STIHL has another major migration lined up. This one will be even bigger than the last, but Constanze isn’t worried. 

“In our next project, we’ll be copying at least a hundred terabytes to SharePoint Online. In the meantime, we will absolutely keep using ShareGate for SharePoint maintenance and everyday support issues.” 

As an organization that spans the globe, STIHL has found a powerful, scalable, and customizable SharePoint management solution in ShareGate.

“In our next project, we estimate we will copy close to a hundred terabytes to SharePoint Online. In the meantime, we will absolutely keep using ShareGate for SharePoint maintenance and everyday support issues.”