Episode 421: Microsoft 365 Mergers and Divestitures with Frank Lesniak

February 16, 2026

Episode Transcript

Welcome to Episode 421 of the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast. In this episode Ben sits down for a conversation with Frank Lesniak, the lead of the Microsoft 365 team at West Monroe. In this episode, they dive into the intricacies of mergers and divestitures within Microsoft 365 environments. They discuss the initial due diligence phase, planning and approach, building and configuring new environments, and the final migration and cutover phase. Frank shares insights on common challenges such as integration of different licensing models, the handling of workstations and applications, and the importance of security assessments. The episode provides a detailed look at the methodology and tools used by Frank’s team to streamline these complex processes.

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Show Notes

Frank Lesniak

Frank Lesniak is a Sr. Cybersecurity & Enterprise Technology Architect at West Monroe with nearly 20 years of experience leading consulting engagements involving Microsoft infrastructure technology. His expertise spans modern cloud systems like Azure, Microsoft 365, and Entra ID to classic platforms like Windows Server, Active Directory, and SQL Server. His recent focus has been on Microsoft platform cybersecurity and automating technical processes using PowerShell. In his role, Frank establishes technical project methodologies, leads teams, automates associated processes, and creates internal software products at West Monroe and in the open-source community.

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1 00:00:03,520 --> 00:00:05,919 Welcome to episode 421 2 00:00:05,919 --> 00:00:09,039 of the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro podcast recorded 3 00:00:09,039 --> 00:00:12,049 live from Workplace Ninjas US, December 4 00:00:12,049 --> 00:00:12,900 2025. 5 00:00:13,039 --> 00:00:15,335 This is a show about Microsoft three sixty 6 00:00:15,335 --> 00:00:17,414 five and Azure from the perspective of IT 7 00:00:17,414 --> 00:00:19,574 pros and end users, where we discuss a 8 00:00:19,574 --> 00:00:21,734 topic or recent news and how it relates 9 00:00:21,734 --> 00:00:24,375 to you. We're back to another interview when 10 00:00:24,375 --> 00:00:27,030 Ben sits down for a conversation with Frank 11 00:00:27,030 --> 00:00:29,750 Lesniak, the lead of the Microsoft three sixty 12 00:00:29,750 --> 00:00:32,329 five team at West Monroe. In this episode, 13 00:00:32,390 --> 00:00:34,869 they dive into the intricacies of mergers and 14 00:00:34,869 --> 00:00:37,850 divestitures within Microsoft three sixty five environments. 15 00:00:38,149 --> 00:00:41,270 They discuss the initial due diligence phase, planning 16 00:00:41,270 --> 00:00:41,929 and approach, 17 00:00:42,284 --> 00:00:44,684 building and configuring new environments, and the final 18 00:00:44,684 --> 00:00:47,804 migration and cutover phase. Frank shares insights on 19 00:00:47,804 --> 00:00:50,684 common challenges such as integration of different licensing 20 00:00:50,684 --> 00:00:53,104 models, the handling of workstations and applications, 21 00:00:53,644 --> 00:00:56,090 as well as the importance of security assessments. 22 00:00:56,229 --> 00:00:58,710 The episode provides a detailed look at the 23 00:00:58,710 --> 00:00:59,210 methodology 24 00:00:59,510 --> 00:01:02,010 and tools used by Frank's team to streamline 25 00:01:02,070 --> 00:01:03,609 these complex processes. 26 00:01:06,150 --> 00:01:08,469 We're here for another Microsoft Cloud IT Pro 27 00:01:08,469 --> 00:01:08,969 podcast. 28 00:01:09,494 --> 00:01:11,814 Another one without Scott. I have left him 29 00:01:11,814 --> 00:01:13,354 behind once more 30 00:01:13,655 --> 00:01:15,834 and came to Workplace Ninjas 31 00:01:16,215 --> 00:01:18,215 US twenty twenty five. So this is the 32 00:01:18,215 --> 00:01:19,594 first one of these 33 00:01:19,974 --> 00:01:21,894 in The US. And I'm sitting down here 34 00:01:21,894 --> 00:01:24,310 with Frank Lesniak. Said the name right, right? 35 00:01:24,310 --> 00:01:26,150 You got it. Alright, perfect. And you're the 36 00:01:26,150 --> 00:01:28,150 lead for the Microsoft three sixty five team 37 00:01:28,150 --> 00:01:30,390 at West Monroe Yeah. Microsoft three sixty five 38 00:01:30,390 --> 00:01:33,189 Consulting. Yep. So happy to sit down and 39 00:01:33,189 --> 00:01:34,230 talk with you, and I think we have 40 00:01:34,230 --> 00:01:36,390 a super interesting topic today, it's something I 41 00:01:36,390 --> 00:01:38,150 have done some of. Sounds like you guys 42 00:01:38,150 --> 00:01:40,435 do a ton of these, so fascinated to 43 00:01:40,435 --> 00:01:42,915 talk about our topic. But before we do 44 00:01:42,915 --> 00:01:44,694 that, do you wanna give a little intro 45 00:01:44,755 --> 00:01:48,355 about you, whether it's work or personal or 46 00:01:48,355 --> 00:01:49,895 fun or whatever 47 00:01:50,435 --> 00:01:52,834 you feel so inclined? Sure, yeah. So I 48 00:01:52,834 --> 00:01:54,939 describe myself as a tech enthusiast. I like 49 00:01:54,939 --> 00:01:57,540 to nerd out on various technology things. Home 50 00:01:57,540 --> 00:01:59,460 on me. So tech is fun and work 51 00:01:59,460 --> 00:02:00,820 and like there's a lot more Yeah. I'm 52 00:02:00,820 --> 00:02:02,579 one of these rare people that actually likes 53 00:02:02,579 --> 00:02:04,100 work. Like it's kind of it's kind of 54 00:02:04,100 --> 00:02:05,380 messed up to say that out loud but 55 00:02:05,380 --> 00:02:06,820 it is it's true. I do actually really 56 00:02:06,820 --> 00:02:08,055 like what I do. So I I feel 57 00:02:08,055 --> 00:02:10,215 blessed about that. Yeah. I'm a tech enthusiast. 58 00:02:10,215 --> 00:02:11,894 I've it at the heart of it, if 59 00:02:11,894 --> 00:02:13,894 anybody follows me on socials, I post about 60 00:02:13,894 --> 00:02:16,715 general tech, not just Microsoft stuff. Okay. But, 61 00:02:16,854 --> 00:02:18,455 yeah. At work, like you said, I lead 62 00:02:18,455 --> 00:02:20,134 our Microsoft three sixty five team. It's a 63 00:02:20,134 --> 00:02:21,539 team of 45 people 64 00:02:21,840 --> 00:02:24,319 that have different sort of sub disciplines within 65 00:02:24,319 --> 00:02:26,080 Microsoft three sixty five. Not everybody's technical. We've 66 00:02:26,080 --> 00:02:28,080 also got project managers and other stuff. Alright. 67 00:02:28,080 --> 00:02:29,199 But, yeah, like you said, one of the 68 00:02:29,199 --> 00:02:31,199 things we focus on is corporate m and 69 00:02:31,199 --> 00:02:33,625 a corporate m and a and doing divestitures 70 00:02:33,625 --> 00:02:36,264 and integrations, and that is its own special 71 00:02:36,264 --> 00:02:38,185 type of project that I'm excited to dig 72 00:02:38,185 --> 00:02:40,664 into. Those are super interesting. And again, I've 73 00:02:40,664 --> 00:02:42,504 done a few of these. But you have 74 00:02:42,504 --> 00:02:44,025 done way more than I have, so I'm 75 00:02:44,025 --> 00:02:45,245 curious to hear 76 00:02:45,650 --> 00:02:47,490 some of your approaches. And we'll make sure, 77 00:02:47,490 --> 00:02:49,490 like you said, socials, we'll make sure anybody 78 00:02:49,490 --> 00:02:51,569 listening, we'll post all your socials Awesome. Awesome. 79 00:02:51,650 --> 00:02:53,569 In the show notes. Speedbook can go find 80 00:02:53,569 --> 00:02:55,490 you, follow you, all of that. Okay. But 81 00:02:55,490 --> 00:02:57,250 we were talking about this, the merging and 82 00:02:57,250 --> 00:02:58,870 divestitures. And I feel like 83 00:02:59,170 --> 00:03:00,069 this has gotten 84 00:03:00,594 --> 00:03:02,914 a lot more common in terms of at 85 00:03:02,914 --> 00:03:05,474 least what I've seen from Microsoft three sixty 86 00:03:05,474 --> 00:03:06,215 five projects 87 00:03:06,754 --> 00:03:09,875 in the last few years of companies buying 88 00:03:09,875 --> 00:03:11,794 a bunch of companies, and Microsoft three sixty 89 00:03:11,794 --> 00:03:14,375 five has been around long enough now that 90 00:03:14,750 --> 00:03:16,610 it seems like whenever you buy a company, 91 00:03:16,750 --> 00:03:18,909 you both have Microsoft three sixty five. Copy. 92 00:03:18,909 --> 00:03:20,590 Or you also have on the opposite side 93 00:03:20,590 --> 00:03:23,090 the divestitures where these two companies 94 00:03:23,469 --> 00:03:25,870 a big one that just split was it 95 00:03:25,870 --> 00:03:26,930 Discovery and 96 00:03:27,284 --> 00:03:29,245 HBO? Just split or Warner Brothers? Yes. I 97 00:03:29,245 --> 00:03:30,724 just know. There was a split there, and 98 00:03:30,724 --> 00:03:32,405 I think they had Microsoft three sixty five. 99 00:03:32,405 --> 00:03:33,604 So it's like Yeah. And I know I 100 00:03:33,925 --> 00:03:36,344 projects like that where it's 101 00:03:36,805 --> 00:03:38,985 how do you start looking at these? And 102 00:03:39,125 --> 00:03:40,724 we were talking, you gave me some bullet 103 00:03:40,724 --> 00:03:42,245 points that we'll try to stick to is 104 00:03:42,245 --> 00:03:44,300 you have three phases. And I think it 105 00:03:44,300 --> 00:03:46,480 would be interesting to kinda dive through 106 00:03:46,860 --> 00:03:49,180 when you start thinking about these three phases 107 00:03:49,180 --> 00:03:52,219 and kinda how you approach this from that 108 00:03:52,219 --> 00:03:53,740 perspective and how you help some of your 109 00:03:53,740 --> 00:03:55,580 clients with that. Yeah. So before we dive 110 00:03:55,580 --> 00:03:57,181 into that, one thing I forgot to mention, 111 00:03:57,181 --> 00:03:58,917 we were chatting before this is, there's sort 112 00:03:58,917 --> 00:04:00,460 of a pre phase that I may or 113 00:04:00,460 --> 00:04:02,195 may not be or somebody on my team 114 00:04:02,195 --> 00:04:03,738 may or may not be involved in, and 115 00:04:03,738 --> 00:04:05,280 that's called the due diligence phase. Okay. So 116 00:04:05,280 --> 00:04:07,209 before this is all kind like, at this 117 00:04:07,209 --> 00:04:08,751 point, it'd be super confidential. Nobody knows about 118 00:04:08,751 --> 00:04:10,294 the deal, this acquisition or divestiture. Right. And 119 00:04:10,294 --> 00:04:12,139 there's this like, kind of pre phase where 120 00:04:12,280 --> 00:04:14,039 typically the buyer you can do this on 121 00:04:14,039 --> 00:04:15,319 the sell side too. If you're the seller, 122 00:04:15,319 --> 00:04:16,600 you might wanna do, like, kind of a 123 00:04:16,600 --> 00:04:18,839 tabletop sort of exercise where you Okay. Do 124 00:04:18,839 --> 00:04:20,360 a fake diligence to see, like, how you 125 00:04:20,360 --> 00:04:22,199 would score and maybe make some improvements before 126 00:04:22,199 --> 00:04:23,774 you go to market. But typically it's on 127 00:04:23,774 --> 00:04:25,615 the buy side where we're helping the buyer 128 00:04:25,615 --> 00:04:28,175 assess the company that's being purchased and looking 129 00:04:28,175 --> 00:04:28,675 at 130 00:04:28,975 --> 00:04:31,634 how they might go about the divestiture. 131 00:04:32,095 --> 00:04:34,095 Okay. And so and also are there any 132 00:04:34,095 --> 00:04:36,014 risks in the environment? Like maybe there's a 133 00:04:36,014 --> 00:04:36,514 glaring 134 00:04:36,850 --> 00:04:38,769 MFA issue or something like that, right? So 135 00:04:38,769 --> 00:04:40,290 we're out there. But there's MFA issues that 136 00:04:40,290 --> 00:04:41,750 Microsoft three sixty five? 137 00:04:42,689 --> 00:04:44,449 Well, talk to Merrill and get Maestro up 138 00:04:44,449 --> 00:04:46,769 and ready. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. But 139 00:04:46,769 --> 00:04:48,209 anyway, there's this sort of like pre phase 140 00:04:48,209 --> 00:04:49,410 where we might do some like kind of 141 00:04:49,410 --> 00:04:51,555 initial triage of the situation. But then that 142 00:04:51,555 --> 00:04:54,275 gets us into Once the transaction occurs, people 143 00:04:54,275 --> 00:04:56,194 sign the paperwork or they're about to sign 144 00:04:56,194 --> 00:04:57,875 the paperwork, we start talking about the first 145 00:04:57,875 --> 00:05:00,514 phase of of these projects, divestiture project, the 146 00:05:00,514 --> 00:05:02,595 actual execution project, which is called we call 147 00:05:02,595 --> 00:05:04,675 it an approach and plan project. Okay. Where 148 00:05:04,675 --> 00:05:06,970 we basically get we simply start working with 149 00:05:06,970 --> 00:05:09,529 the buyer and we figure out, okay, what 150 00:05:09,529 --> 00:05:11,129 is it that we want to do here? 151 00:05:11,129 --> 00:05:13,529 Because these projects always are like drinking from 152 00:05:13,529 --> 00:05:15,209 the fire hose, everybody's like, let's go and 153 00:05:15,209 --> 00:05:17,529 there's not really a plan usually. Right. So 154 00:05:17,529 --> 00:05:18,970 the first thing we do is it's not 155 00:05:18,970 --> 00:05:20,410 very sexy, but we sit down and we 156 00:05:20,410 --> 00:05:22,454 build that plan and the specifics about what 157 00:05:22,454 --> 00:05:23,495 it is we're going to do. And we 158 00:05:23,495 --> 00:05:25,254 work with the seller as well to get 159 00:05:25,254 --> 00:05:26,854 agreement on, like, hey, this is going to 160 00:05:26,854 --> 00:05:28,694 be the approach. This is precisely how we're 161 00:05:28,694 --> 00:05:31,495 gonna migrate email, SharePoint, Teams, even old school 162 00:05:31,495 --> 00:05:34,730 file shares maybe, identities, workstations. Here's the plan. 163 00:05:34,730 --> 00:05:36,410 Here's how we're going to do this. Do 164 00:05:36,410 --> 00:05:38,730 you agree? If so, great. If not, okay. 165 00:05:38,730 --> 00:05:40,330 Let's figure out something that is agreeable. And 166 00:05:40,330 --> 00:05:41,770 then also, what tools are we using? Are 167 00:05:41,770 --> 00:05:43,449 we gonna use bit tight migration ways? Are 168 00:05:43,449 --> 00:05:45,290 we gonna use Quest on Demand? What are 169 00:05:45,290 --> 00:05:47,210 we doing? And what sort of permissions are 170 00:05:47,210 --> 00:05:49,274 implied or what sort of connectivity might be 171 00:05:49,274 --> 00:05:51,435 implied with that approach? Yep. Do you ever 172 00:05:51,435 --> 00:05:53,355 have I've come across this with some of 173 00:05:53,355 --> 00:05:55,995 the I would say more the mergers that 174 00:05:55,995 --> 00:05:57,514 I've done, but it'd be interesting. I haven't 175 00:05:57,514 --> 00:05:58,495 done a lot of divestitures 176 00:05:59,035 --> 00:06:01,800 Mhmm. Where you even have a merger and 177 00:06:01,800 --> 00:06:03,879 the buyer of the company is like, we're 178 00:06:03,879 --> 00:06:06,039 buying this other company. Mhmm. We need to 179 00:06:06,039 --> 00:06:07,879 migrate. And we're like, okay. Great. What are 180 00:06:07,879 --> 00:06:09,879 we migrating? They're like, well, we know they 181 00:06:09,879 --> 00:06:10,620 use Teams. 182 00:06:11,959 --> 00:06:13,719 We don't really know about other stuff. Do 183 00:06:13,719 --> 00:06:15,714 you also build in, like, I would say 184 00:06:15,714 --> 00:06:18,375 almost a discovery of it? Let's go into 185 00:06:18,834 --> 00:06:21,654 the company you're buying and actually figure out 186 00:06:21,795 --> 00:06:24,214 what it is we need to migrate. Yes. 187 00:06:24,274 --> 00:06:26,754 Exactly. Yes. Scoping the migration is so like 188 00:06:26,754 --> 00:06:28,595 people don't really I think clearly appreciate this. 189 00:06:28,595 --> 00:06:29,795 We spend a lot of time in this 190 00:06:29,795 --> 00:06:30,774 upfront phase. 191 00:06:31,180 --> 00:06:33,019 First of all, figuring out who are even 192 00:06:33,019 --> 00:06:34,539 the employees that are coming across. Yeah. Because 193 00:06:34,539 --> 00:06:36,620 not everybody might come across. I've seen that 194 00:06:36,620 --> 00:06:37,979 too where it's like a portion of the 195 00:06:37,979 --> 00:06:39,419 company is being bought. Yeah. Like let's say 196 00:06:39,419 --> 00:06:41,339 it's 200 That's like that's the churn merger 197 00:06:41,339 --> 00:06:43,180 all in one. Right. Right. Exactly. Let's say 198 00:06:43,180 --> 00:06:45,115 it's 200 people that are conveying. Well who 199 00:06:45,115 --> 00:06:46,794 are those 200 people? Like let's get a 200 00:06:46,794 --> 00:06:48,794 definitive list. You'd be surprised at how challenging 201 00:06:48,794 --> 00:06:50,555 that is sometimes. Just getting the damn list 202 00:06:50,555 --> 00:06:52,555 together. Once we have a list though, we've 203 00:06:52,555 --> 00:06:54,634 got some automations and some tools written. Unfortunately 204 00:06:54,634 --> 00:06:56,843 these are not publicly available. Okay. We basically 205 00:06:56,970 --> 00:06:59,214 You gotta have some IP, right? Exactly. Yeah. 206 00:06:59,274 --> 00:07:00,024 We do. 207 00:07:00,589 --> 00:07:02,350 I'll describe what happens. Basically what we do 208 00:07:02,350 --> 00:07:04,270 is we work with the seller to do 209 00:07:04,270 --> 00:07:05,810 a full inventory of Exchange 210 00:07:06,110 --> 00:07:08,189 and SharePoint, and we keep that data in 211 00:07:08,189 --> 00:07:10,270 their environment because there's no way in hell 212 00:07:10,270 --> 00:07:11,550 the seller is gonna give us a full 213 00:07:11,550 --> 00:07:13,389 inventory of their environments. We just say seller 214 00:07:13,389 --> 00:07:15,764 run this tool, keep the data, and then 215 00:07:15,764 --> 00:07:17,524 we've got a separate so it's like basically 216 00:07:17,524 --> 00:07:19,285 that does a full dump of Exchange and 217 00:07:19,285 --> 00:07:21,524 full dump of sorry, metadata. Not Got it. 218 00:07:21,524 --> 00:07:23,444 Not the actual data, but just the data 219 00:07:23,444 --> 00:07:25,285 about the data. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Like here 220 00:07:25,285 --> 00:07:26,884 are all the recipients in Exchange and here's 221 00:07:26,884 --> 00:07:28,725 all the information about them. Basically that's what 222 00:07:28,725 --> 00:07:30,480 we're doing. Okay. And the SharePoint front, here's 223 00:07:30,480 --> 00:07:32,167 a list of all the SharePoint sites and 224 00:07:32,167 --> 00:07:33,680 the permissions associated with them, the URLs and 225 00:07:33,680 --> 00:07:35,080 all that sort of stuff. Alright. I'm being 226 00:07:35,199 --> 00:07:36,960 I'm overstintheling a little bit, but basically that's 227 00:07:36,960 --> 00:07:38,560 what that looks like. Right. And it's a 228 00:07:38,560 --> 00:07:40,560 huge CSV as the output. Got it. We 229 00:07:40,560 --> 00:07:42,480 then have a second script that basically does 230 00:07:42,480 --> 00:07:45,154 an ETL on the data set. And it 231 00:07:45,154 --> 00:07:47,735 it walks through the permission set to recursively 232 00:07:47,795 --> 00:07:49,235 find all of the, in the case of 233 00:07:49,235 --> 00:07:51,154 Exchange, that are related to that list of 234 00:07:51,154 --> 00:07:52,915 definitive people that are coming across. Got it. 235 00:07:52,915 --> 00:07:54,754 Okay. So we find all the mailboxes that 236 00:07:54,754 --> 00:07:56,055 have some sort of involvement 237 00:07:56,389 --> 00:07:58,970 or distribution list, whatever. Right. Share mailboxes. 238 00:07:59,350 --> 00:08:00,949 Exactly. Yeah. We find the things that are 239 00:08:00,949 --> 00:08:03,110 related definitively to these 200 people. And it 240 00:08:03,110 --> 00:08:05,110 typically is a superset. There's like usually some 241 00:08:05,110 --> 00:08:06,709 junk in there that doesn't need to convey. 242 00:08:06,709 --> 00:08:08,069 But this gives us like sort of the 243 00:08:08,069 --> 00:08:09,865 universe of what might need to migrate. And 244 00:08:09,865 --> 00:08:11,704 then there's some adjudication on that list with 245 00:08:11,704 --> 00:08:13,384 both the buyer and the seller. Like, buyer, 246 00:08:13,384 --> 00:08:14,824 do you really want this to come across? 247 00:08:14,824 --> 00:08:16,185 Yes or no? Right. What even is it? 248 00:08:16,185 --> 00:08:18,024 They might need to go investigate with whoever 249 00:08:18,024 --> 00:08:20,104 has permission to it. And then the seller 250 00:08:20,104 --> 00:08:21,865 might say, no. You're not getting that data 251 00:08:21,865 --> 00:08:23,529 for x y z reasons. So this is 252 00:08:23,529 --> 00:08:25,770 an adjudication process that is not something you 253 00:08:25,770 --> 00:08:27,930 can automate, but Okay. Yeah. That that all 254 00:08:27,930 --> 00:08:29,290 kicks off in this Do you ever look 255 00:08:29,290 --> 00:08:31,770 at and get involved into and again, one 256 00:08:31,770 --> 00:08:33,370 that I've seen come up is all the 257 00:08:33,370 --> 00:08:35,825 enter apps that are registered. Like they're when 258 00:08:35,825 --> 00:08:37,304 they do a merger and it's, oh, by 259 00:08:37,304 --> 00:08:39,024 the way, you have DocuSign that's set up 260 00:08:39,024 --> 00:08:41,664 with SSO, and you have Yep. Adobe Creative 261 00:08:41,664 --> 00:08:44,644 Cloud, and you have Calendly, and you have 262 00:08:44,785 --> 00:08:47,184 I mean, it's not uncommon to see hundreds 263 00:08:47,184 --> 00:08:49,664 of registered applications that are in Entra. Yep. 264 00:08:49,664 --> 00:08:52,200 It's like you realize that this merger, that 265 00:08:52,200 --> 00:08:54,679 entry timing goes away. Yep. How are we 266 00:08:54,679 --> 00:08:57,240 gonna handle all of those registered applications? Yeah. 267 00:08:57,240 --> 00:08:58,840 So if it's a divestiture or carve out, 268 00:08:58,840 --> 00:09:00,779 right, that's got one of pressure. We typically 269 00:09:01,000 --> 00:09:02,940 would wanna understand what are they actually using, 270 00:09:03,000 --> 00:09:04,600 and what also like This is I'm getting 271 00:09:04,600 --> 00:09:05,879 ahead of myself a little bit, but there's 272 00:09:05,879 --> 00:09:07,235 like a question about some the timing of 273 00:09:07,235 --> 00:09:09,235 some of these things. Right? So like, let's 274 00:09:09,235 --> 00:09:10,834 say that you let's say that the selling 275 00:09:10,834 --> 00:09:13,254 company has 2,000 apps. They're a huge enterprise, 276 00:09:13,394 --> 00:09:16,514 but the divesting entity only uses two only 277 00:09:16,514 --> 00:09:18,834 air quotes uses 200 of those. Right. Right? 278 00:09:18,834 --> 00:09:20,440 Then we have a question of, okay, do 279 00:09:20,440 --> 00:09:21,879 these apps need to convey yes or no? 280 00:09:21,879 --> 00:09:23,480 Something like DocuSign, they might be able to 281 00:09:23,480 --> 00:09:26,200 continue to use the selling company's iteration of 282 00:09:26,200 --> 00:09:28,519 that app for some period of time. And 283 00:09:28,519 --> 00:09:31,340 the access and ability for the divesting 284 00:09:31,800 --> 00:09:34,845 folks to continue to use the selling companies 285 00:09:34,845 --> 00:09:37,825 applications is covered under an explicit legal agreement. 286 00:09:37,965 --> 00:09:39,565 Okay. We're getting a little off tech here, 287 00:09:39,565 --> 00:09:41,325 but but it's actually important. Well, but it's 288 00:09:41,325 --> 00:09:42,605 all yeah. It's all part of this. So 289 00:09:42,605 --> 00:09:44,684 this is an agreement called the transaction services 290 00:09:44,684 --> 00:09:46,705 agreement or TSA. Okay. It describes 291 00:09:47,199 --> 00:09:48,959 in detail, here are the services that are 292 00:09:48,959 --> 00:09:50,480 gonna be provided by the seller for this 293 00:09:50,480 --> 00:09:52,079 amount of time, and here are the fees 294 00:09:52,079 --> 00:09:53,379 associated with those services. 295 00:09:53,759 --> 00:09:55,440 So it's typically a monthly fee for email, 296 00:09:55,440 --> 00:09:56,959 a monthly fee for SharePoint, a monthly fee 297 00:09:56,959 --> 00:09:58,959 or whatever. Yep. And those things are typically 298 00:09:58,959 --> 00:10:00,980 enumerated. The ideal situation is 299 00:10:01,519 --> 00:10:02,884 we help the buyer 300 00:10:03,504 --> 00:10:05,745 negotiate that transaction services agreement during the diligence 301 00:10:05,745 --> 00:10:06,985 phase that I mentioned that I'll put in 302 00:10:06,985 --> 00:10:08,384 the pre phase. Okay. So you help with 303 00:10:08,384 --> 00:10:09,825 that part of it too then? Not me 304 00:10:09,825 --> 00:10:11,225 personally, but we have But you have people. 305 00:10:11,345 --> 00:10:13,105 Specialists. Yeah. People on your team. Yeah. They're 306 00:10:13,105 --> 00:10:14,384 working with lawyers and stuff too. Right? That's 307 00:10:14,384 --> 00:10:14,884 right. 308 00:10:16,065 --> 00:10:18,039 Those lawyers. I know. I mean, the thing 309 00:10:18,039 --> 00:10:20,039 about these TSA's though that's so important is 310 00:10:20,039 --> 00:10:21,740 that monthly fee for service. 311 00:10:22,200 --> 00:10:24,839 And we, West Monroe and my team, we 312 00:10:24,839 --> 00:10:27,559 focus a lot on speed. And so what 313 00:10:27,559 --> 00:10:29,080 ends up it's sort of funny in a 314 00:10:29,080 --> 00:10:30,839 way. Maybe I shouldn't say this. But these 315 00:10:30,839 --> 00:10:33,754 companies that are selling these divisions or whatever, 316 00:10:33,754 --> 00:10:35,455 they're divesting these entities. 317 00:10:36,235 --> 00:10:39,274 They structure these transaction services agreements to make 318 00:10:39,274 --> 00:10:42,735 money. Like, they're they're basically I mean, sometimes 319 00:10:43,035 --> 00:10:45,035 these fees are crazy. Right? Or sometimes the 320 00:10:45,035 --> 00:10:46,559 fees escalate. That's the other thing. They might 321 00:10:46,559 --> 00:10:47,839 divide the service for a certain number of 322 00:10:47,839 --> 00:10:49,519 months, and then the fee escalates if you're 323 00:10:49,519 --> 00:10:50,879 not off in a certain month. Got it. 324 00:10:50,879 --> 00:10:53,039 Right? So it's sort of the build versus 325 00:10:53,039 --> 00:10:54,639 buy mentality a little bit. Like, let's say 326 00:10:54,639 --> 00:10:57,120 the company that's acquiring this organization has a 327 00:10:57,120 --> 00:10:59,279 team. Maybe they technically have the capability to 328 00:10:59,279 --> 00:11:01,585 do the business for themselves. That's fine. And 329 00:11:01,585 --> 00:11:03,184 and what they may have the sort of 330 00:11:03,184 --> 00:11:04,865 wherewithal to do that, but they may not 331 00:11:04,865 --> 00:11:06,545 have the capacity to do it relative to 332 00:11:06,545 --> 00:11:08,785 their other op day to day operational expenses. 333 00:11:08,785 --> 00:11:10,545 Or not expenses, but day to day operational 334 00:11:10,705 --> 00:11:12,625 Right. Because of the speed and the timing 335 00:11:12,625 --> 00:11:14,225 and all of that. Yeah. Yeah. So so 336 00:11:14,225 --> 00:11:16,144 let's say a typical IT team can do 337 00:11:16,144 --> 00:11:16,679 a divestiture 338 00:11:17,159 --> 00:11:18,679 in nine to twelve months. I think that's 339 00:11:18,679 --> 00:11:20,200 reasonable if you've got a decent team who's 340 00:11:20,200 --> 00:11:21,799 maybe done it before, but don't have a 341 00:11:21,799 --> 00:11:24,039 dedicated resource pool that that can do this. 342 00:11:24,039 --> 00:11:25,559 And they're sort of splitting this with their 343 00:11:25,559 --> 00:11:27,080 day job. Nine to twelve months might be 344 00:11:27,080 --> 00:11:29,095 typical for like a mid sized sort of 345 00:11:29,095 --> 00:11:30,774 divestiture. My team can get it done in 346 00:11:30,774 --> 00:11:32,535 probably three months. Okay. If you think about 347 00:11:32,535 --> 00:11:34,535 that, right, relative to the TSA and the 348 00:11:34,535 --> 00:11:37,355 monthly fees Oh, yeah. We have an automated 349 00:11:37,975 --> 00:11:40,710 automatic business case for even though, like, our 350 00:11:40,710 --> 00:11:42,149 fees aren't small. Like, we come in and 351 00:11:42,149 --> 00:11:43,910 we do this quickly and we sort of 352 00:11:44,149 --> 00:11:45,670 in in some ways, it's I think it's 353 00:11:45,670 --> 00:11:47,190 sort of funny because we end up doing 354 00:11:47,190 --> 00:11:48,230 a little bit of a bait and switch 355 00:11:48,230 --> 00:11:49,910 sometimes with these selling companies. They think they're 356 00:11:49,910 --> 00:11:52,410 expecting to earn nine months of monthly revenue 357 00:11:52,754 --> 00:11:54,595 from providing these services. And then we come 358 00:11:54,595 --> 00:11:55,955 in and get it done in three. They're 359 00:11:55,955 --> 00:11:57,335 like, oh, crap. Right. 360 00:11:57,955 --> 00:11:59,715 They're done. But I don't feel bad about 361 00:11:59,715 --> 00:12:01,075 that, actually. Like, I to me, it's like, 362 00:12:01,075 --> 00:12:02,835 hey, man. Like, you're kind of price gouging. 363 00:12:02,835 --> 00:12:04,595 It's sort of a captive audience. Oh, for 364 00:12:04,595 --> 00:12:06,035 sure. You're sort of price gouging this. But 365 00:12:06,035 --> 00:12:07,715 it's all part of the negotiations and the 366 00:12:07,715 --> 00:12:10,160 sale anyway. So Yeah. Yeah. So once you 367 00:12:10,160 --> 00:12:12,480 get that's kind of the approach and plan 368 00:12:12,480 --> 00:12:14,399 where you're doing the discovery, you're running all 369 00:12:14,399 --> 00:12:17,040 your tools, figuring out the data. Exactly. You 370 00:12:17,040 --> 00:12:19,200 have to know what's migrating. This is probably 371 00:12:19,200 --> 00:12:21,200 where you also develop a little bit of 372 00:12:21,200 --> 00:12:23,365 the project plan of we're gonna do it 373 00:12:23,365 --> 00:12:25,045 in this order. A percent. Yeah. This is 374 00:12:25,045 --> 00:12:27,445 the timing. Yeah. Exactly. So going back to, 375 00:12:27,445 --> 00:12:28,965 like, your question about the applications, I guess 376 00:12:28,965 --> 00:12:30,804 I didn't really fully address that. There's discussion 377 00:12:30,804 --> 00:12:32,404 about, okay, so when are we migrating email? 378 00:12:32,404 --> 00:12:34,004 Are we migrating workstations at the same time 379 00:12:34,004 --> 00:12:35,285 as emails? Depending on the size of the 380 00:12:35,285 --> 00:12:35,785 company, 381 00:12:36,120 --> 00:12:37,720 that may be reasonable you may wanna do 382 00:12:37,720 --> 00:12:39,559 that. You may want a big bang email 383 00:12:39,559 --> 00:12:41,480 workstation on the same weekend, let's say. Right. 384 00:12:41,480 --> 00:12:43,399 And then the question is, okay, what about 385 00:12:43,399 --> 00:12:45,559 applications? When are those migrating? They might migrate 386 00:12:45,559 --> 00:12:47,000 at the same time depending on what they 387 00:12:47,000 --> 00:12:48,679 are. If there's software as a service applications, 388 00:12:48,679 --> 00:12:50,759 maybe we're just getting new contracts put up 389 00:12:50,759 --> 00:12:52,784 with DocuSign, to use your example earlier. Oh, 390 00:12:52,784 --> 00:12:54,704 really? We do DocuSign contract. We connect that 391 00:12:54,704 --> 00:12:56,784 to entry ID. When we provision identities and 392 00:12:56,784 --> 00:12:58,784 they register for MFA, they're they have access 393 00:12:58,784 --> 00:13:00,225 to it and they're off to the races. 394 00:13:00,225 --> 00:13:02,544 Right? Simple example, but, like, we may cut 395 00:13:02,544 --> 00:13:04,384 over some applications in that way. Other applications 396 00:13:04,384 --> 00:13:06,679 may take longer and they may need access 397 00:13:06,919 --> 00:13:08,440 they may need to be accessible under the 398 00:13:08,440 --> 00:13:10,279 TSA for some period of time. Like, in 399 00:13:10,279 --> 00:13:12,440 the case of manufacturing, for example, they might 400 00:13:12,440 --> 00:13:14,220 have an ER, an ERP platform, 401 00:13:14,600 --> 00:13:16,360 that's running all their manufacturing and shipping and 402 00:13:16,360 --> 00:13:18,144 all the logistics and everything. I mean, you're 403 00:13:18,144 --> 00:13:19,745 not gonna spin that thing up Right. Immediately. 404 00:13:19,745 --> 00:13:21,985 You can't disrupt their business for several months 405 00:13:21,985 --> 00:13:23,504 either. You're probably not I mean, even if 406 00:13:23,504 --> 00:13:25,825 you're a superpower, a super nerd at ERP. 407 00:13:25,825 --> 00:13:27,424 Because you're not spinning up an ERP that 408 00:13:27,424 --> 00:13:29,424 reflects their business operations in three months. Yeah. 409 00:13:29,424 --> 00:13:30,784 It's not gonna happen. That's probably more like 410 00:13:30,784 --> 00:13:33,089 a year to eighteen month project. Okay. So 411 00:13:33,089 --> 00:13:34,929 typically, there's some applications that are sort of 412 00:13:34,929 --> 00:13:36,769 left behind Mhmm. In some way that has 413 00:13:36,769 --> 00:13:38,069 to be sort of negotiated 414 00:13:38,449 --> 00:13:40,690 for the migrated users to get back to 415 00:13:40,690 --> 00:13:43,649 those applications depending on their architecture. Right. Yeah. 416 00:13:43,649 --> 00:13:45,475 It's interesting. And I was one of the 417 00:13:45,475 --> 00:13:47,794 ones I'm thinking through now and working on 418 00:13:47,794 --> 00:13:50,355 as well is like both companies have AD, 419 00:13:50,355 --> 00:13:52,514 all the workstations are joined to AD, both 420 00:13:52,514 --> 00:13:54,595 ADs are synced to different entry tenants. Like, 421 00:13:54,595 --> 00:13:56,915 there's a lot of moving parts when you're 422 00:13:56,915 --> 00:13:59,235 planning this out to think through. To your 423 00:13:59,235 --> 00:14:01,679 point, the timing, it's if you just move 424 00:14:02,059 --> 00:14:04,059 identities and SharePoint and email, but you leave 425 00:14:04,059 --> 00:14:05,679 the workstations in the old domain 426 00:14:06,299 --> 00:14:07,659 for a period of time, now you have 427 00:14:07,659 --> 00:14:08,320 two identities 428 00:14:08,700 --> 00:14:11,019 and it's Right. Exactly. There's a lot of 429 00:14:11,019 --> 00:14:13,279 different, I would say, a lot of nuances 430 00:14:13,659 --> 00:14:15,965 that you really do need to sit down 431 00:14:15,965 --> 00:14:17,804 and figure out this plan. Exactly. Yeah. Like, 432 00:14:17,804 --> 00:14:19,325 we have a standard playbook that we we 433 00:14:19,325 --> 00:14:21,325 try and follow, but there's none of these 434 00:14:21,325 --> 00:14:22,764 are the same. There always some there's always 435 00:14:22,764 --> 00:14:23,745 some unique wrenches. 436 00:14:24,045 --> 00:14:25,644 Like, I I didn't mention this, but the 437 00:14:25,644 --> 00:14:27,004 other thing that comes up in these approaching 438 00:14:27,004 --> 00:14:29,004 plans sometimes is a seller that just says 439 00:14:29,004 --> 00:14:30,149 no to everything. Like, 440 00:14:30,629 --> 00:14:32,470 sometimes these folks are just really difficult. I 441 00:14:32,470 --> 00:14:34,250 get it. Like, people are worried about cybersecurity. 442 00:14:34,550 --> 00:14:36,790 They're worried about they're talking to if we're 443 00:14:36,790 --> 00:14:37,990 on the buy side. Right? Like, if the 444 00:14:37,990 --> 00:14:39,590 buyer is the one who hired us, the 445 00:14:39,590 --> 00:14:41,670 seller didn't hire us. Right. They don't wanna 446 00:14:41,670 --> 00:14:43,985 work with us necessarily. And some of the 447 00:14:44,065 --> 00:14:45,871 employees don't want it. They're like, no. The 448 00:14:45,871 --> 00:14:46,605 CEO sold the company. I'm mad that we're 449 00:14:46,605 --> 00:14:48,784 getting sold to the buyer. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. 450 00:14:49,084 --> 00:14:50,684 Or they're mad they weren't sold. Maybe they 451 00:14:50,684 --> 00:14:52,284 wanted to convey. Like, there there's all kinds 452 00:14:52,284 --> 00:14:54,125 of politics that go into this. But also 453 00:14:54,125 --> 00:14:56,204 the sometimes there's that that remember I told 454 00:14:56,204 --> 00:14:57,404 you that bait and switch thing where we're 455 00:14:57,404 --> 00:14:59,160 kinda getting they're realizing we're gonna get this 456 00:14:59,160 --> 00:15:00,600 car done a lot faster than they were 457 00:15:00,600 --> 00:15:01,100 expecting. 458 00:15:01,639 --> 00:15:04,220 Sometimes they introduce roadblocks to slow things down. 459 00:15:04,279 --> 00:15:06,360 Got it. Whether they say that explicitly or 460 00:15:06,360 --> 00:15:08,040 it's understood or not, I that's what's happening 461 00:15:08,040 --> 00:15:09,080 in a lot of cases. Yeah. And I 462 00:15:09,080 --> 00:15:09,820 was imagining 463 00:15:10,134 --> 00:15:11,574 too, it kinda goes to something we might 464 00:15:11,574 --> 00:15:13,095 touch on later, is you also could probably 465 00:15:13,095 --> 00:15:15,014 have MSPs involved with the seller where the 466 00:15:15,014 --> 00:15:18,214 MSPs are worried they're gonna lose Yes. Their 467 00:15:18,214 --> 00:15:20,694 client Yeah. That's right. Because they're being acquired 468 00:15:20,694 --> 00:15:23,194 by the buyer who has a different MSP. 469 00:15:23,254 --> 00:15:24,475 And MSPs 470 00:15:25,000 --> 00:15:27,080 can be a little difficult when you're trying 471 00:15:27,080 --> 00:15:28,920 to pull stuff away from them. So Yeah. 472 00:15:28,920 --> 00:15:30,040 We've heard that happen a few times where 473 00:15:30,040 --> 00:15:31,559 they just aren't I mean, they're not teach 474 00:15:31,559 --> 00:15:32,040 people 475 00:15:32,759 --> 00:15:34,440 how to cooperate, but they also have to 476 00:15:34,519 --> 00:15:35,899 They're not helpful. 477 00:15:36,279 --> 00:15:36,779 Yes. 478 00:15:37,240 --> 00:15:39,160 You get that whole approach, you've planned it 479 00:15:39,160 --> 00:15:40,884 out, you have it set up, and then 480 00:15:40,884 --> 00:15:43,684 you move into phase two. We'll call it 481 00:15:43,684 --> 00:15:45,284 phase two. You kinda have the pre phase. 482 00:15:45,284 --> 00:15:46,964 We got a pre phase, phase one, phase 483 00:15:46,964 --> 00:15:49,044 two. Yep. Yep. Exactly. So this is where 484 00:15:49,204 --> 00:15:51,684 so in most situations, this I'm gonna totally 485 00:15:51,684 --> 00:15:53,684 agree with specific circumstances. But in a lot 486 00:15:53,684 --> 00:15:55,569 of situations where we're working on divestiture, that 487 00:15:55,569 --> 00:15:57,809 divesting entity is getting spun up as its 488 00:15:57,809 --> 00:15:59,970 own standalone company. Okay. I think about it. 489 00:15:59,970 --> 00:16:02,949 You're going from relying on probably a centralized 490 00:16:03,089 --> 00:16:03,829 IT function. 491 00:16:04,289 --> 00:16:05,809 You're you're part of a big company, like 492 00:16:05,809 --> 00:16:08,159 a huge enterprise. You're relying on a centralized 493 00:16:08,904 --> 00:16:11,225 IT function at that large company. Now you're 494 00:16:11,225 --> 00:16:11,725 getting 495 00:16:12,024 --> 00:16:13,625 carved out or spun off as your own 496 00:16:13,625 --> 00:16:16,024 entity, and you don't have an IT function. 497 00:16:16,024 --> 00:16:17,945 So we're building that for them. Right? A 498 00:16:17,945 --> 00:16:20,105 lot of times these these investors don't have 499 00:16:20,105 --> 00:16:22,105 IT staff that are conveying. Well, maybe they 500 00:16:22,105 --> 00:16:24,570 have one IT leader. That's fairly common work. 501 00:16:24,570 --> 00:16:27,450 Somebody is sort of nominated as the new 502 00:16:27,450 --> 00:16:29,370 CIO or thereabouts. Do you get to go 503 00:16:29,370 --> 00:16:30,809 leave and be the new IT guy at 504 00:16:30,809 --> 00:16:32,570 the new company? Yeah. Which is fine. That's 505 00:16:32,570 --> 00:16:34,169 a pretty good perk. You become the CIO. 506 00:16:34,169 --> 00:16:36,429 Right. Get a promotion due to it. Exactly. 507 00:16:36,649 --> 00:16:38,490 So sometimes that's the case where we have 508 00:16:38,490 --> 00:16:41,065 a director who's there, but usually there's no 509 00:16:41,065 --> 00:16:43,625 other conveying. Okay. Nobody actually do the work 510 00:16:43,625 --> 00:16:45,264 because we all know what directors do. It's 511 00:16:45,264 --> 00:16:45,464 like they 512 00:16:46,184 --> 00:16:48,264 there isn't necessarily even someone who's a decision 513 00:16:48,264 --> 00:16:48,764 maker. 514 00:16:49,304 --> 00:16:51,625 Okay. Right? Like, they may not maybe they're 515 00:16:51,625 --> 00:16:52,664 in charge of IT, but they may not 516 00:16:52,664 --> 00:16:54,524 be maybe they're more of an application person. 517 00:16:55,360 --> 00:16:55,759 For example. 518 00:16:56,399 --> 00:16:57,840 There's a lot of different permutations there, but 519 00:16:57,840 --> 00:16:58,879 basically they may not be able to make 520 00:16:58,879 --> 00:17:00,320 all the decisions that need to be made. 521 00:17:00,320 --> 00:17:02,480 So we have a a templatized playbook for 522 00:17:02,480 --> 00:17:04,579 spinning up new m three sixty five tenants 523 00:17:04,960 --> 00:17:07,599 and new Azure subscriptions and all the infrastructure 524 00:17:07,599 --> 00:17:09,815 that goes along with that. So for Microsoft 525 00:17:09,815 --> 00:17:11,894 three sixty five, we use m three sixty 526 00:17:11,894 --> 00:17:13,515 five DSC today. Alright. 527 00:17:13,815 --> 00:17:15,494 And one of my coworkers, a shout out 528 00:17:15,494 --> 00:17:17,755 that like Cherry built a he built a 529 00:17:18,134 --> 00:17:20,375 very robust, very and others do our involved. 530 00:17:20,375 --> 00:17:20,819 I shouldn't change that. They built out a 531 00:17:20,819 --> 00:17:21,355 very robust, 532 00:17:37,734 --> 00:17:39,034 that that saves a ton of time 533 00:17:39,335 --> 00:17:41,095 and reduces a lot of risk. And then 534 00:17:41,095 --> 00:17:43,095 we also have something similar on the Azure 535 00:17:43,095 --> 00:17:44,234 side. We use Terraform, 536 00:17:44,694 --> 00:17:46,615 like so many other companies too. And there's 537 00:17:46,615 --> 00:17:48,214 a co kind of a complicated chicken and 538 00:17:48,214 --> 00:17:49,734 egg situation that you'd have to talk more 539 00:17:49,734 --> 00:17:51,509 to, like, Danny Stutz or Blake Cherry about. 540 00:17:51,910 --> 00:17:53,349 Uh-huh. There's there's a chicken and egg situation 541 00:17:53,349 --> 00:17:54,630 where they don't have a, 542 00:17:55,269 --> 00:17:56,869 an Azure DevOps environment yet, and we need 543 00:17:56,869 --> 00:17:57,750 them to have one, so we have, like, 544 00:17:57,750 --> 00:17:59,670 just to kind of rebuild that and kind 545 00:17:59,670 --> 00:18:01,190 of seed everything and then and then launch 546 00:18:01,190 --> 00:18:02,630 this. And then you can go push it 547 00:18:02,630 --> 00:18:04,505 all out. Okay. We're setting up kind of 548 00:18:04,505 --> 00:18:07,724 a corporate IT, back office IT style subscription 549 00:18:08,105 --> 00:18:09,865 that meets all the best leading practices and 550 00:18:09,865 --> 00:18:11,704 all that sort of stuff. It's like we're 551 00:18:11,704 --> 00:18:13,384 doing hybrid identity by default so we're getting 552 00:18:13,384 --> 00:18:15,884 domain controllers spun up, we're getting some utility 553 00:18:15,900 --> 00:18:18,059 servers spun up. Basically, the for infrastructure you 554 00:18:18,059 --> 00:18:20,140 need to run any business, getting all that 555 00:18:20,140 --> 00:18:22,700 spun up, and and the same eventual I 556 00:18:22,779 --> 00:18:24,779 venture it, connect, and all these things. Got 557 00:18:24,779 --> 00:18:25,279 it. 558 00:18:29,705 --> 00:18:31,865 Do you feel overwhelmed by trying to manage 559 00:18:31,865 --> 00:18:34,184 your Office three sixty five environment? 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Whether 569 00:18:56,130 --> 00:18:58,210 you are a small organization with just a 570 00:18:58,210 --> 00:19:00,555 few users up to an organization of several 571 00:19:00,555 --> 00:19:01,615 thousand employees, 572 00:19:01,994 --> 00:19:03,914 they want to partner with you to implement 573 00:19:03,914 --> 00:19:06,734 and administer your Microsoft cloud technology. 574 00:19:07,434 --> 00:19:10,974 Visit them at inteligync.com/podcast. 575 00:19:11,194 --> 00:19:17,890 That's intelligink.com/podcast 576 00:19:18,349 --> 00:19:20,429 for more information or to schedule a thirty 577 00:19:20,429 --> 00:19:22,529 minute call to get started with them today. 578 00:19:22,750 --> 00:19:26,109 Remember, Intelligink focuses on the Microsoft cloud so 579 00:19:26,109 --> 00:19:27,795 you can focus on your business. 580 00:19:30,195 --> 00:19:32,035 That's in a divestiture. How do you think 581 00:19:32,035 --> 00:19:34,275 about it when it's a merger? Because then 582 00:19:34,275 --> 00:19:36,515 some of that you're not building from scratch 583 00:19:36,515 --> 00:19:38,835 because the parent company has it. Yeah. I'm 584 00:19:38,835 --> 00:19:41,154 assuming there's still gonna be maybe stuff to 585 00:19:41,154 --> 00:19:43,529 build based on some of that planning. Yeah. 586 00:19:43,529 --> 00:19:45,289 But do you approach that then a little 587 00:19:45,609 --> 00:19:47,049 or how do you approach that, I guess, 588 00:19:47,049 --> 00:19:48,730 from the build and configure? It's a lot 589 00:19:48,730 --> 00:19:49,950 more bespoke. I mean, 590 00:19:50,329 --> 00:19:51,849 to be honest, like, I like to give 591 00:19:51,849 --> 00:19:53,849 benefits of doubt to any client I work 592 00:19:53,849 --> 00:19:55,130 with. There are a lot of smart a 593 00:19:55,130 --> 00:19:56,889 lot of smart people out there, and nobody 594 00:19:56,889 --> 00:19:59,795 intends to make egregious security mistakes. Yep. But 595 00:19:59,795 --> 00:20:01,394 not everybody does a good job of testing 596 00:20:01,394 --> 00:20:02,695 their security and 597 00:20:03,474 --> 00:20:04,755 one of the first things we do, I 598 00:20:04,755 --> 00:20:05,954 used to do this years ago because they're 599 00:20:06,115 --> 00:20:07,894 one of my clients had a security incident 600 00:20:08,195 --> 00:20:09,795 unrelated to our work, but like, it was 601 00:20:09,795 --> 00:20:11,154 while we were doing a project. You always 602 00:20:11,154 --> 00:20:12,599 have put that disclaimer on there. Right? They 603 00:20:12,599 --> 00:20:14,119 had a security incident, but it wasn't us. 604 00:20:14,119 --> 00:20:16,119 No. For real. Because I've had that too. 605 00:20:16,119 --> 00:20:17,720 But it was it just happened while we 606 00:20:17,720 --> 00:20:18,940 were doing all their work, man. Yep. 607 00:20:20,599 --> 00:20:22,279 And they were mad at us because we 608 00:20:22,279 --> 00:20:24,039 had administrative access to their tenant. Well, it 609 00:20:24,039 --> 00:20:25,400 didn't have And they got it. Why didn't 610 00:20:25,400 --> 00:20:26,586 you look at us? And it's like, we 611 00:20:26,586 --> 00:20:28,195 didn't have any scope to look at. Why 612 00:20:28,195 --> 00:20:30,207 would Right. Why would I You didn't hire 613 00:20:30,207 --> 00:20:31,817 us to do a security analysis of your 614 00:20:31,817 --> 00:20:33,829 environment. Not gonna I'm like, go away on 615 00:20:33,829 --> 00:20:35,639 my way to see poke around in your 616 00:20:35,639 --> 00:20:37,249 tenant, which we might raise other alarms. Why 617 00:20:37,249 --> 00:20:38,858 is Frank looking at all these security settings? 618 00:20:38,858 --> 00:20:40,740 Yeah. Let's Frank do it in the HR 619 00:20:40,740 --> 00:20:41,640 SharePoint site. 620 00:20:42,180 --> 00:20:44,420 Right. Right. So I instituted a rule, and 621 00:20:44,420 --> 00:20:46,420 we stick with this now. We're we have 622 00:20:46,420 --> 00:20:48,100 any sizable m three sixty five project. Doesn't 623 00:20:48,100 --> 00:20:49,539 matter if it's the best of your integration, 624 00:20:49,539 --> 00:20:51,779 whatever. Always do an m three sixty five. 625 00:20:51,779 --> 00:20:52,279 Alright. 626 00:20:53,299 --> 00:20:54,938 Even if the client doesn't want us to 627 00:20:54,938 --> 00:20:56,567 do it, we're still doing it and we 628 00:20:56,567 --> 00:20:57,775 might maybe not make a big show out 629 00:20:57,775 --> 00:20:59,214 of it, but I still wanna know what 630 00:20:59,214 --> 00:21:01,054 the security posture of the market is. Right. 631 00:21:01,054 --> 00:21:02,974 And so we do that to the target 632 00:21:02,974 --> 00:21:05,054 organization of the place where we're migrating to 633 00:21:05,054 --> 00:21:05,954 the next situation. 634 00:21:06,335 --> 00:21:08,255 And along with that, we're also kind of 635 00:21:08,255 --> 00:21:11,619 examining the general MFA posture of the divesting 636 00:21:11,619 --> 00:21:14,259 entity or or the entity to be integrated, 637 00:21:14,259 --> 00:21:16,339 I should say. And what we're looking for 638 00:21:16,339 --> 00:21:18,259 is, like, are there differences in MFA behavior 639 00:21:18,259 --> 00:21:19,859 that we need to sort of adjudicate and 640 00:21:19,859 --> 00:21:22,019 figure out, like, maybe resolve differences on? Whether 641 00:21:22,019 --> 00:21:23,319 that's because there's a security 642 00:21:23,700 --> 00:21:24,679 hole or because 643 00:21:25,005 --> 00:21:26,765 something is too lax or too aggressive and 644 00:21:26,765 --> 00:21:28,045 and, like, basically, what are the impacts these 645 00:21:28,045 --> 00:21:29,724 employees are gonna experience when they come in? 646 00:21:29,724 --> 00:21:30,924 And is there anything we need to fix 647 00:21:30,924 --> 00:21:33,244 because there's a glaring security problem? Yeah. The 648 00:21:33,244 --> 00:21:35,085 other one I've seen too that's become more 649 00:21:35,085 --> 00:21:37,585 interesting especially with mergers is different licenses. 650 00:21:37,884 --> 00:21:38,865 Yes. Like if 651 00:21:39,279 --> 00:21:39,859 if the 652 00:21:40,720 --> 00:21:43,359 the selling company has e fives and the 653 00:21:43,359 --> 00:21:45,920 buying company only has e threes Right. Like, 654 00:21:45,920 --> 00:21:48,240 you can run into some and I'm assuming 655 00:21:48,240 --> 00:21:49,680 that actually comes out in the approach and 656 00:21:49,680 --> 00:21:52,164 plan, but then Yeah. Building out how are 657 00:21:52,164 --> 00:21:53,704 we gonna handle this because 658 00:21:54,005 --> 00:21:55,704 we're losing certain functionality. 659 00:21:56,164 --> 00:21:58,644 Yeah. Exactly. Actually, we had that situation earlier. 660 00:21:58,644 --> 00:21:59,605 Was it this year? I think it was 661 00:21:59,605 --> 00:22:00,724 earlier this year. Yeah. We wrapped up this 662 00:22:00,724 --> 00:22:02,644 project in January where we were working with 663 00:22:02,644 --> 00:22:05,945 two very large manufacturing companies. They're global. 664 00:22:06,299 --> 00:22:07,420 Alright. I can't say the name on it, 665 00:22:07,420 --> 00:22:08,539 but I know it's fine. If I told 666 00:22:08,539 --> 00:22:09,340 you the name, you would know who they 667 00:22:09,340 --> 00:22:11,500 are. We were working with them on basically 668 00:22:11,500 --> 00:22:13,420 an approach and plan and that situation was 669 00:22:13,420 --> 00:22:16,380 exactly right. They had one company had M365E5, 670 00:22:16,380 --> 00:22:18,460 the other one had M365E3 671 00:22:18,460 --> 00:22:19,900 and they were coming together as a new 672 00:22:19,900 --> 00:22:21,904 organization and really trying to figure out what's 673 00:22:21,904 --> 00:22:23,585 the and the e three organization had a 674 00:22:23,585 --> 00:22:26,224 bunch of third party tools in the mix. 675 00:22:26,224 --> 00:22:27,505 CrowdStrike and all that, you know, I mean, 676 00:22:27,505 --> 00:22:29,505 they were sort of augmenting the gap there 677 00:22:29,505 --> 00:22:31,505 with other stuff. Yep. And there was a 678 00:22:31,505 --> 00:22:33,105 sort of there was a lot of discussion 679 00:22:33,105 --> 00:22:35,184 and consternation around, like, what's the right at 680 00:22:35,184 --> 00:22:36,144 at the end of the day, this is 681 00:22:36,144 --> 00:22:37,420 just, like, part of the planning, part of 682 00:22:37,420 --> 00:22:38,880 the adjudication. It's, like, okay. Let's 683 00:22:39,180 --> 00:22:40,940 come together and resolve these differences. You're gonna 684 00:22:40,940 --> 00:22:43,180 be one team, etcetera, etcetera. Yep. Actually, that 685 00:22:43,180 --> 00:22:44,859 situation was kind of interesting too because they 686 00:22:44,859 --> 00:22:46,859 were two public companies, and we were working 687 00:22:46,859 --> 00:22:49,259 before the transaction was closed. So before the 688 00:22:49,259 --> 00:22:51,335 legal documents were signed. Oh. And they were 689 00:22:51,335 --> 00:22:53,494 competitors. And so they weren't legally allowed to 690 00:22:53,494 --> 00:22:54,855 talk to each other about this sort of 691 00:22:54,855 --> 00:22:56,775 stuff. Oh, wow. So they talked we were 692 00:22:56,775 --> 00:22:58,215 hired as sort of an intermediary. It was 693 00:22:58,215 --> 00:22:59,894 a unique situation. We were they were able 694 00:22:59,894 --> 00:23:01,335 to talk with us, and we were able 695 00:23:01,335 --> 00:23:02,934 to kind of mediate and figure out, okay. 696 00:23:02,934 --> 00:23:04,679 Like, here's what you guys should be. Like, 697 00:23:04,679 --> 00:23:06,359 if you're a consultative sort of way, here's 698 00:23:06,359 --> 00:23:07,720 what you all should be thinking about. Is 699 00:23:07,720 --> 00:23:10,200 this agreeable person a? Is this agreeable person 700 00:23:10,200 --> 00:23:12,119 b? Person b. Yeah. And that would have 701 00:23:12,119 --> 00:23:13,960 been fascinating. It was it was pretty interesting. 702 00:23:13,960 --> 00:23:16,235 Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. What else? So, yeah. 703 00:23:16,235 --> 00:23:19,115 We talked about NetNewell tools, automating it, building 704 00:23:19,115 --> 00:23:21,134 out those landing zones, Terraform, DSC. 705 00:23:21,595 --> 00:23:23,134 We spent all the time in the Workstations. 706 00:23:23,275 --> 00:23:25,994 Yeah. Deployments and workstations. That's another interesting one 707 00:23:25,994 --> 00:23:28,589 because we talked about their domain joined. Like, 708 00:23:28,750 --> 00:23:30,669 it's not just a, hey, let's go change 709 00:23:30,669 --> 00:23:32,669 the domain or the enter domain that the 710 00:23:32,669 --> 00:23:34,429 enter ID Yeah. And here's the thing, like, 711 00:23:34,429 --> 00:23:37,490 you can't technically, you can flip these machines 712 00:23:37,630 --> 00:23:39,089 in place from 713 00:23:39,390 --> 00:23:42,750 being traditionally domain joined to being enter ID 714 00:23:42,750 --> 00:23:45,225 joined with and then autopilot enabled should they 715 00:23:45,225 --> 00:23:46,585 need to be reset or something. Yeah. You 716 00:23:46,585 --> 00:23:48,825 can do that technically. Like, QuestODM supports some 717 00:23:48,825 --> 00:23:50,664 of that functionality. We've had clients that that 718 00:23:50,664 --> 00:23:52,345 employ that functionality very well. I had a 719 00:23:52,345 --> 00:23:54,904 client use UK based, and this is before 720 00:23:54,904 --> 00:23:56,664 we got involved, but they big bang migrated 721 00:23:56,664 --> 00:23:58,045 I think 5,000 workstations 722 00:23:58,650 --> 00:24:00,890 in like an evening or a weekend. Wow. 723 00:24:00,890 --> 00:24:02,170 I mean, when they tell me this story, 724 00:24:02,170 --> 00:24:03,549 I thought they were lying to be honest. 725 00:24:03,690 --> 00:24:05,769 That just makes me It makes me so 726 00:24:05,769 --> 00:24:07,849 nervous. Yeah. Yeah. Personally, I would not stand 727 00:24:07,849 --> 00:24:09,450 up for that. But I mean the technology 728 00:24:09,450 --> 00:24:11,130 is there. The issues that we have to 729 00:24:11,130 --> 00:24:13,305 figure out though is more on this like, 730 00:24:13,465 --> 00:24:15,384 I'm talking about divestitures a lot because that's 731 00:24:15,384 --> 00:24:17,164 mostly what we have to deal with. Okay. 732 00:24:17,384 --> 00:24:19,225 Because integrations are a little different. Like when 733 00:24:19,225 --> 00:24:21,144 you're if you're buying a company in a 734 00:24:21,144 --> 00:24:22,585 Folsom sort of way, like you bought an 735 00:24:22,585 --> 00:24:25,384 entire entity and there's no carve out taking 736 00:24:25,384 --> 00:24:27,670 place. Yep. You kinda have full control of 737 00:24:27,670 --> 00:24:28,950 the environment and you can do whatever you 738 00:24:28,950 --> 00:24:30,070 want. So you might be able to do 739 00:24:30,070 --> 00:24:31,910 that in place migration. But when you're doing 740 00:24:31,910 --> 00:24:34,390 a carve out, you're not typically getting admin 741 00:24:34,390 --> 00:24:36,730 rights to that selling organization's environment. 742 00:24:37,110 --> 00:24:38,650 Yeah. So it becomes, 743 00:24:38,984 --> 00:24:40,664 you can't do what you might wanna do, 744 00:24:40,664 --> 00:24:41,944 I guess, is what I'm trying to say. 745 00:24:41,944 --> 00:24:43,964 Right? So our typical approach for workstations 746 00:24:44,265 --> 00:24:46,825 is actually to de autopilot enroll with them 747 00:24:46,825 --> 00:24:48,424 from the parent or the selling company's side 748 00:24:48,664 --> 00:24:50,664 Okay. And then autopilot enroll them on the 749 00:24:50,664 --> 00:24:53,859 acquiring organization side and either reset them or 750 00:24:53,859 --> 00:24:56,019 reimage them. Yeah. Depending on that's our typical 751 00:24:56,019 --> 00:24:58,519 sort of playbook, but It's in my 752 00:24:59,140 --> 00:25:00,900 experience, that's the easiest way to do it. 753 00:25:00,900 --> 00:25:02,500 It's a if you do But it causes 754 00:25:02,500 --> 00:25:04,755 consternation. You're wiping the device. What's the situation 755 00:25:04,755 --> 00:25:06,515 with the date on the device? It away. 756 00:25:06,515 --> 00:25:07,875 Exactly. Because at that point in time, you 757 00:25:07,875 --> 00:25:09,394 don't have anything spun up like OneDrive with 758 00:25:09,394 --> 00:25:10,835 no folder move that's gonna move it into 759 00:25:10,835 --> 00:25:12,595 the Exactly. We have to like we have 760 00:25:12,595 --> 00:25:14,934 to kind of hope, pray, plan, and assume 761 00:25:15,075 --> 00:25:18,295 with communications that that the selling organization has 762 00:25:18,539 --> 00:25:20,720 that stuff turned on and it's syncing correctly 763 00:25:21,259 --> 00:25:23,259 and we're getting telemetry and there's communication to 764 00:25:23,259 --> 00:25:24,940 users to make sure that they're checking that 765 00:25:24,940 --> 00:25:27,019 OneDrive icon to make sure there's no To 766 00:25:27,019 --> 00:25:28,700 make sure. There's no red x's or anything 767 00:25:28,700 --> 00:25:30,860 like that. Like, so many people ignore that 768 00:25:30,860 --> 00:25:32,860 the OneDrive sync client. Yeah. It does make 769 00:25:32,860 --> 00:25:34,065 me nervous and this is always a big 770 00:25:34,065 --> 00:25:36,224 point of concern when we come in and 771 00:25:36,224 --> 00:25:37,984 say, hey. Let's wipe all the workstages. Everybody 772 00:25:37,984 --> 00:25:39,904 freaks out. Right? So it takes some Right. 773 00:25:39,984 --> 00:25:42,384 Takes some most organizational change management, so to 774 00:25:42,384 --> 00:25:43,904 speak, to And then I'm assuming too when 775 00:25:43,904 --> 00:25:46,384 you're doing the migration, it's probably also, to 776 00:25:46,384 --> 00:25:48,369 a certain extent, like, what data are we 777 00:25:48,369 --> 00:25:49,970 allowed to take, what data has to stay 778 00:25:49,970 --> 00:25:53,089 behind Yeah. Yeah. Making sure that we're only 779 00:25:53,089 --> 00:25:53,589 migrating 780 00:25:53,970 --> 00:25:55,890 what we're supposed to and that we're not 781 00:25:55,890 --> 00:25:58,690 missing anything. We're also supposed to migrate. Yeah. 782 00:25:58,690 --> 00:26:00,210 Yeah. I mean, on the workstation side, we 783 00:26:00,210 --> 00:26:02,285 don't worry about that so much. It's typically 784 00:26:02,285 --> 00:26:04,204 assumed and agreeable that anything on the workstation 785 00:26:04,204 --> 00:26:06,785 can convey. Okay. And anything in people's OneDrives 786 00:26:06,845 --> 00:26:08,684 can convey typically. I think I haven't had 787 00:26:08,684 --> 00:26:11,085 a seller, knock on wood. I don't I 788 00:26:11,085 --> 00:26:12,884 don't like this adjudication stuff. It's annoying. Good 789 00:26:12,884 --> 00:26:14,880 to call. Tomorrow. You're right. Like, I mean, 790 00:26:14,880 --> 00:26:16,559 this may come up. But generally speaking, they 791 00:26:16,559 --> 00:26:18,160 kinda give people the benefit of the doubt 792 00:26:18,160 --> 00:26:19,940 that, hey, people aren't stealing 793 00:26:20,320 --> 00:26:22,240 or trying to actual trade stuff. Yeah. Where 794 00:26:22,240 --> 00:26:23,600 that comes more into play is, like, on 795 00:26:23,600 --> 00:26:25,759 the SharePoint team's file share side of the 796 00:26:25,759 --> 00:26:27,600 house where we maybe extend a bit more 797 00:26:27,600 --> 00:26:29,964 time. And that's we try and we start 798 00:26:29,964 --> 00:26:31,804 that process in the approaching plan where we 799 00:26:31,804 --> 00:26:33,884 sort of draw the boundary around the what 800 00:26:33,884 --> 00:26:36,525 possibly might migrate. Yeah. But there's usually ongoing 801 00:26:36,525 --> 00:26:39,005 adjudication about okay what exactly is gonna I 802 00:26:39,005 --> 00:26:40,684 like that word adjudication by the way. It's 803 00:26:40,684 --> 00:26:42,559 a fun word. But there's ongoing sort of 804 00:26:42,559 --> 00:26:44,880 debate about what is and isn't migrating and 805 00:26:44,880 --> 00:26:46,559 sometimes a reversal of decisions too, which is 806 00:26:46,559 --> 00:26:47,940 always fun. Anyway, yeah. 807 00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:51,140 Wow. So that's you got it all built, 808 00:26:51,200 --> 00:26:51,700 configured 809 00:26:52,080 --> 00:26:54,080 Yeah. Ready to go. Like, at this point 810 00:26:54,080 --> 00:26:55,359 in time Yeah. The end of this, you 811 00:26:55,359 --> 00:26:57,524 haven't ready to migrate. Right. You haven't actually 812 00:26:57,524 --> 00:27:00,164 migrated anything. You've just prepped. Okay. It's all 813 00:27:00,164 --> 00:27:02,244 ready. It's here to go. We're gonna move 814 00:27:02,244 --> 00:27:04,005 it over now. I've heard this say, we're 815 00:27:04,005 --> 00:27:05,524 also staging the data in this space. Okay. 816 00:27:05,524 --> 00:27:06,884 Yeah. So So you can set up a 817 00:27:06,884 --> 00:27:09,630 free migration of some of the mailboxes. Yeah. 818 00:27:09,710 --> 00:27:11,470 We pre stage the data, like, for example, 819 00:27:11,470 --> 00:27:13,809 with migration was mid time migration was 820 00:27:14,269 --> 00:27:15,410 used you precede 821 00:27:15,789 --> 00:27:18,109 email data that's, like, t minus thirty days 822 00:27:18,109 --> 00:27:20,509 old, typically. Yep. You get all that sort 823 00:27:20,509 --> 00:27:22,190 of stuff staged, and you fix errors, and 824 00:27:22,190 --> 00:27:23,390 you deal with all that. And that's it's 825 00:27:23,390 --> 00:27:24,670 kind of kinda works in the background. Same 826 00:27:24,670 --> 00:27:26,005 thing with SharePoint we use. I mean, it 827 00:27:26,005 --> 00:27:28,505 depends. We typically use Sharegate. Sharegate. Okay. And 828 00:27:28,804 --> 00:27:30,724 and same thing for Teams. And we can 829 00:27:30,724 --> 00:27:32,085 also use Quest and we do sometimes. It 830 00:27:32,085 --> 00:27:34,484 depends on the situation. So anyway, we we 831 00:27:34,484 --> 00:27:36,325 precede as much data as we can during 832 00:27:36,325 --> 00:27:38,244 this phase. Alright. And then you get to 833 00:27:38,244 --> 00:27:39,944 the cut over where everybody's 834 00:27:40,630 --> 00:27:42,950 probably Yeah. All hands on deck. All hands 835 00:27:42,950 --> 00:27:45,109 on deck. And Yeah. There's a couple different 836 00:27:45,109 --> 00:27:47,509 approaches here. Like, you have the big bang, 837 00:27:47,509 --> 00:27:49,029 the one you talked about, where maybe you're 838 00:27:49,029 --> 00:27:51,990 migrating 5,000 users in a night or in 839 00:27:51,990 --> 00:27:54,630 a weekend. Yep. Or there's probably also scenarios 840 00:27:54,630 --> 00:27:56,294 where you may try to do things a 841 00:27:56,294 --> 00:27:58,774 little bit more gradual and probably pros and 842 00:27:58,774 --> 00:28:00,774 cons to both of those. Yeah. We almost 843 00:28:00,774 --> 00:28:03,734 always big bang identity and email. Okay. Because 844 00:28:03,734 --> 00:28:05,595 it's just not feasible in my opinion. 845 00:28:06,134 --> 00:28:07,894 I mean, it technically, I get that you 846 00:28:07,894 --> 00:28:09,575 can make this work. But, like, again, with 847 00:28:09,575 --> 00:28:12,000 the divestiture kind of situation in mind, the 848 00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:14,240 selling company doesn't want us to screw around 849 00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:16,240 with their email flow. Yep. Makes sense. They 850 00:28:16,240 --> 00:28:17,679 do not want us putting tools in place 851 00:28:17,679 --> 00:28:19,359 that messaged through. That's just that's not an 852 00:28:19,359 --> 00:28:22,640 option realistically speaking. Yeah. So we are typically 853 00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:24,724 doing a big bang migration out of necessity 854 00:28:24,724 --> 00:28:26,984 on at least on email and identities. 855 00:28:27,365 --> 00:28:29,284 Alright. Just because otherwise it gets confusing as 856 00:28:29,284 --> 00:28:30,964 to how do you even email this person. 857 00:28:30,964 --> 00:28:32,404 I know you use forwarders and other stuff, 858 00:28:32,404 --> 00:28:33,924 but like it just becomes a Yeah. It 859 00:28:33,924 --> 00:28:36,164 gets messy. Yeah. And then the other actually 860 00:28:36,164 --> 00:28:38,339 the sticking point is usually calendars and trying 861 00:28:38,339 --> 00:28:40,500 to see, like, trying to schedule meetings accurately 862 00:28:40,500 --> 00:28:42,619 with people and understand their availability. If we 863 00:28:42,859 --> 00:28:44,539 I didn't mention this, but when we do 864 00:28:44,539 --> 00:28:47,019 a final cut over of email using, like, 865 00:28:47,019 --> 00:28:49,339 for example, migration whiz, that final cut over 866 00:28:49,339 --> 00:28:50,940 is what brings the calendar over. There are 867 00:28:50,940 --> 00:28:53,654 no calendar items brought over Okay. Until that 868 00:28:53,654 --> 00:28:55,815 point. So it's not That's right. Because calendar 869 00:28:55,815 --> 00:28:58,474 doesn't come over to pre stage Correct. With 870 00:28:58,615 --> 00:29:00,214 the type. Correct. And actually if you do, 871 00:29:00,214 --> 00:29:01,894 like, if you do bring it over for 872 00:29:01,894 --> 00:29:03,414 whatever reason, it causes it, it can cause 873 00:29:03,414 --> 00:29:04,934 issues. You wanna do that in one fell 874 00:29:04,934 --> 00:29:06,694 swoop at the end. Yeah. Calendar point, like, 875 00:29:06,694 --> 00:29:09,890 getting edits, deletions, changes. Yeah. I've seen the 876 00:29:09,890 --> 00:29:11,930 major issues of recurring meetings. There's all kinds 877 00:29:11,930 --> 00:29:13,330 of problems if you do that. So, yeah. 878 00:29:13,330 --> 00:29:14,330 So you have to bring that over at 879 00:29:14,330 --> 00:29:15,250 the end. So if you got some people 880 00:29:15,250 --> 00:29:17,170 migrating, some people now, you can't see calendars 881 00:29:17,170 --> 00:29:18,630 accurately unless you set up 882 00:29:18,930 --> 00:29:21,170 calendar, like, federation and stuff. You're not doing 883 00:29:21,170 --> 00:29:22,424 that in a situation. 884 00:29:22,884 --> 00:29:24,805 So so it's a big bang email cut 885 00:29:24,805 --> 00:29:26,025 over typically. And then 886 00:29:26,404 --> 00:29:28,244 in the typical big bang cut over is 887 00:29:28,244 --> 00:29:30,325 also kind of group SharePoint teams. Those are 888 00:29:30,325 --> 00:29:32,105 also typically big bang cut over. 889 00:29:32,565 --> 00:29:35,720 Okay. To the extent that we've successfully adjudicated 890 00:29:35,720 --> 00:29:38,200 or agreed upon what's migrating, there's usually some 891 00:29:38,200 --> 00:29:39,179 subset of sites 892 00:29:39,559 --> 00:29:40,059 where 893 00:29:40,440 --> 00:29:42,759 the selling company is insisting on doing a 894 00:29:42,759 --> 00:29:44,919 deep review or maybe lawyers need to get 895 00:29:44,919 --> 00:29:47,414 involved to data data. I can imagine some 896 00:29:47,414 --> 00:29:49,974 of those probably more sensitive sites. Yeah. Yeah. 897 00:29:49,974 --> 00:29:51,894 Again, it depends on the business side. Understand 898 00:29:51,894 --> 00:29:53,894 some of those Some people just sometimes, like, 899 00:29:53,894 --> 00:29:56,214 I I understand, like, security, and I definitely 900 00:29:56,214 --> 00:29:58,454 appreciate that. But sometimes, like, sometimes you kinda 901 00:29:58,454 --> 00:29:59,734 wish, like, can we just agree to be 902 00:29:59,734 --> 00:30:01,289 adults here and, like, business professionals and, 903 00:30:03,289 --> 00:30:04,890 the new company that's being created like we'll 904 00:30:04,890 --> 00:30:06,410 just delete stuff that isn't relevant. We just 905 00:30:06,410 --> 00:30:08,109 agree to this is like a business agreement. 906 00:30:08,490 --> 00:30:10,190 It sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. 907 00:30:10,650 --> 00:30:12,650 But anyway, sometimes stuff doesn't migrate for that 908 00:30:12,650 --> 00:30:13,850 reason. We kind of leave it behind and 909 00:30:13,850 --> 00:30:15,369 we migrate it later. But generally speaking we 910 00:30:15,369 --> 00:30:17,654 try to bring those SharePoint team sites over 911 00:30:17,654 --> 00:30:18,934 the scene. And OneDrive as well. Sorry. I 912 00:30:18,934 --> 00:30:21,015 forgot the message now. Sorry. Actually, that's not 913 00:30:21,015 --> 00:30:23,255 entirely true. We bring OneDrives over with people's 914 00:30:23,255 --> 00:30:23,755 workstations. 915 00:30:24,214 --> 00:30:26,054 Oh, okay. Right? It makes sense with a 916 00:30:26,054 --> 00:30:27,654 known folder. Yeah. Because otherwise, if we brought 917 00:30:27,654 --> 00:30:29,640 OneDrives over ahead of time, they're on their 918 00:30:29,720 --> 00:30:32,039 workstation that's connected to the selling organization. Their 919 00:30:32,039 --> 00:30:34,200 OneDrive is gonna get us sick. Right. So 920 00:30:34,200 --> 00:30:35,799 we timed OneDrives with the migrate with the 921 00:30:35,799 --> 00:30:37,720 workstations, and that's kind of the big the 922 00:30:37,720 --> 00:30:39,320 workstations is really the big question mark in 923 00:30:39,320 --> 00:30:41,160 terms of big bang or not. It really 924 00:30:41,160 --> 00:30:43,195 depends a lot on the logistics and what 925 00:30:43,195 --> 00:30:45,355 can be supported and what's agreeable to the 926 00:30:45,355 --> 00:30:47,595 business. We I would like to big bang 927 00:30:47,595 --> 00:30:49,595 workstations the same weekend. It just makes everything 928 00:30:49,595 --> 00:30:50,875 easier if everybody sort of wakes up on 929 00:30:50,875 --> 00:30:52,555 Monday morning and they're on their new stuff. 930 00:30:52,555 --> 00:30:54,234 Yeah. That's the best scenario if we can 931 00:30:54,234 --> 00:30:56,410 do it. But sometimes if if they have 932 00:30:56,410 --> 00:30:57,210 a large number, 933 00:30:57,690 --> 00:31:00,090 on-site, like a manufacturing plant or something like 934 00:31:00,090 --> 00:31:01,769 that Okay. Right, we have to dispatch a 935 00:31:01,769 --> 00:31:03,370 small army to kind of facilitate some of 936 00:31:03,370 --> 00:31:05,210 this stuff because, again, the the organization doesn't 937 00:31:05,210 --> 00:31:06,430 typically have IT staff. 938 00:31:06,730 --> 00:31:08,105 So we're sending a small army at these 939 00:31:08,105 --> 00:31:09,704 locations. And depending on how many there are 940 00:31:09,704 --> 00:31:11,464 and how where they're located in the world, 941 00:31:11,464 --> 00:31:12,264 we may or may not be able to 942 00:31:12,264 --> 00:31:13,865 do that all on the same weekend. Got 943 00:31:13,865 --> 00:31:15,065 it. So we just have to kind of 944 00:31:15,065 --> 00:31:16,984 think through some of that stuff. And sometimes 945 00:31:16,984 --> 00:31:18,764 we big bang it, sometimes we don't. Alright. 946 00:31:18,825 --> 00:31:21,065 Yeah. Very cool. Well, thanks. Yeah. At the 947 00:31:21,065 --> 00:31:22,799 end, we're at the end of all that, 948 00:31:22,880 --> 00:31:24,640 that's typically the work my team's doing. We 949 00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:26,000 might bring over applications like we were talking 950 00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:27,440 about earlier too at the same time. Alright. 951 00:31:27,440 --> 00:31:28,799 But at the end of all this, typically, 952 00:31:28,799 --> 00:31:30,960 there's they're online in the new environment. They're 953 00:31:30,960 --> 00:31:32,799 working on their new either they're newly issued 954 00:31:32,880 --> 00:31:34,640 I forgot to mention. Sometimes we issue new 955 00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:35,140 workstations 956 00:31:35,674 --> 00:31:37,914 because Okay. Maybe the workstation the hardware sometimes 957 00:31:37,914 --> 00:31:39,515 isn't conveying as part of the transaction. Like, 958 00:31:39,515 --> 00:31:41,674 the buyer has not bought the workstation. With 959 00:31:41,674 --> 00:31:43,035 the seller. Yeah. It has to be sent 960 00:31:43,035 --> 00:31:44,274 back to the seller or something. That's ridiculous. 961 00:31:44,274 --> 00:31:46,154 I think, but that's what that's sometimes what 962 00:31:46,154 --> 00:31:48,154 happens. So either we've given them new machines 963 00:31:48,154 --> 00:31:49,375 or they're using newly 964 00:31:50,190 --> 00:31:52,669 reset or newly released provisions. Yep. Yep. They're 965 00:31:52,669 --> 00:31:54,829 on their new email. Everybody's happy. At least 966 00:31:54,829 --> 00:31:57,089 within a couple of days, everybody's happy. And 967 00:31:57,390 --> 00:31:59,309 but sometimes there's some applications that are sort 968 00:31:59,309 --> 00:32:01,789 of leaving behind, like, those ERPs and other 969 00:32:01,789 --> 00:32:04,634 big big behemoth type applications that just take 970 00:32:04,634 --> 00:32:06,734 more time and effort focusing on the migrate. 971 00:32:06,794 --> 00:32:08,974 Got it. So yeah. That's it. Awesome. 972 00:32:09,275 --> 00:32:11,755 Well, very cool. Thanks, Frank. Yeah. I appreciate 973 00:32:11,755 --> 00:32:14,654 it. Yeah, man. It's always fascinating. I haven't 974 00:32:15,035 --> 00:32:17,694 I have not encountered anybody that's focused 975 00:32:18,049 --> 00:32:18,710 this much 976 00:32:19,329 --> 00:32:21,569 on mergers and investitures. So it was This 977 00:32:21,569 --> 00:32:22,609 is really one of our one of our 978 00:32:22,609 --> 00:32:24,529 key one of our team's key focus areas 979 00:32:24,529 --> 00:32:26,929 is this kind of project. Alright. Perfect. Well, 980 00:32:26,929 --> 00:32:28,390 we'll put links in the episodes, 981 00:32:29,169 --> 00:32:32,424 company website, your social media, Anything else you 982 00:32:32,424 --> 00:32:33,805 wanna share with people, 983 00:32:34,424 --> 00:32:35,945 socials if they wanna get in touch with 984 00:32:35,945 --> 00:32:36,605 you or 985 00:32:36,984 --> 00:32:39,545 websites, LinkedIn, best places to find you? I'm 986 00:32:39,545 --> 00:32:41,384 pretty easy to find, to be honest. Pretty 987 00:32:41,384 --> 00:32:42,664 much on all the socials, you can find 988 00:32:42,664 --> 00:32:44,390 me my first and last name. Okay. I 989 00:32:44,390 --> 00:32:45,509 know you have links, but just to say 990 00:32:45,509 --> 00:32:47,109 that out loud in case somebody's Perfect. While 991 00:32:47,109 --> 00:32:49,669 they're listening. Yes. Exactly. Yeah. So I'm on 992 00:32:49,669 --> 00:32:50,649 x blues guy, 993 00:32:50,950 --> 00:32:51,450 LinkedIn, 994 00:32:51,990 --> 00:32:53,509 Macedon. I don't use it that much when 995 00:32:53,509 --> 00:32:54,950 I'm on there. Okay. I'm on GitHub. So 996 00:32:54,950 --> 00:32:56,069 there's all kinds of ways to get All 997 00:32:56,069 --> 00:32:57,929 of them. Are you the only Frank Lesniak? 998 00:32:58,789 --> 00:33:01,554 No. You'll find one other Frank Lesniak that 999 00:33:01,554 --> 00:33:03,974 comes up when you Google Alright. Name. He's, 1000 00:33:04,674 --> 00:33:06,194 funny enough, he lives in Chicago area, which 1001 00:33:06,194 --> 00:33:07,474 is where I'm where which is where I 1002 00:33:07,474 --> 00:33:09,954 live. But he's, I think, either an administrator 1003 00:33:09,954 --> 00:33:11,714 or, like, a long tenure teacher at a 1004 00:33:11,714 --> 00:33:13,714 public school. Okay. So that's not me. I'm 1005 00:33:13,714 --> 00:33:15,569 not a teacher. So Chicago, are you a 1006 00:33:15,569 --> 00:33:16,930 Bears fan? Are you a football fan? I 1007 00:33:16,930 --> 00:33:18,210 like the Bear. I'm not a I'm not 1008 00:33:18,210 --> 00:33:19,890 like a mega Bears fan. Like, I'm not 1009 00:33:19,890 --> 00:33:21,809 on if you ever seen SNL skits, the 1010 00:33:21,809 --> 00:33:23,170 Supermans, I'm not one of those guys. You 1011 00:33:23,170 --> 00:33:24,369 know? I do like the Bears. I watched 1012 00:33:24,369 --> 00:33:26,369 them the other night. Alright. Yeah. I grew 1013 00:33:26,369 --> 00:33:27,890 up in Michigan, so I'm a Lions fan. 1014 00:33:27,890 --> 00:33:29,089 Okay. I'm still a little mad at you 1015 00:33:29,089 --> 00:33:29,865 for taking Ben 1016 00:33:30,825 --> 00:33:31,325 Johnson. 1017 00:33:31,625 --> 00:33:34,184 Sorry, man. Yeah. That's fair. It happens. Yep. 1018 00:33:34,184 --> 00:33:35,625 Alright. Well, I will let you go. I 1019 00:33:35,625 --> 00:33:37,224 saw the drink cart go by Yes, I 1020 00:33:37,224 --> 00:33:39,545 see. The Expo Hall. So right now this 1021 00:33:39,545 --> 00:33:41,884 episode is standing between us and 1022 00:33:42,345 --> 00:33:44,025 a party in the Expo Hall. Okay. So 1023 00:33:44,025 --> 00:33:45,910 thanks again for joining us. Yeah. All the 1024 00:33:45,910 --> 00:33:47,830 links for stuff. I'll get any other links 1025 00:33:47,830 --> 00:33:49,349 too that you wanna put in the show 1026 00:33:49,349 --> 00:33:50,250 notes, and 1027 00:33:50,630 --> 00:33:52,309 enjoy the rest of the conference. Yeah. Thank 1028 00:33:52,309 --> 00:33:53,849 you. Thanks for having me. Thank you. 1029 00:33:55,830 --> 00:33:58,230 If you enjoyed the podcast, go leave us 1030 00:33:58,230 --> 00:34:00,355 a five star rating in iTunes. It helps 1031 00:34:00,355 --> 00:34:02,035 to get the word out so more IT 1032 00:34:02,035 --> 00:34:04,195 pros can learn about Office three sixty five 1033 00:34:04,195 --> 00:34:04,855 and Azure. 1034 00:34:05,394 --> 00:34:07,075 If you have any questions you want us 1035 00:34:07,075 --> 00:34:09,235 to address on the show, or feedback about 1036 00:34:09,235 --> 00:34:11,635 the show, feel free to reach out via 1037 00:34:11,635 --> 00:34:12,295 our website, 1038 00:34:12,598 --> 00:34:13,738 Twitter, or Facebook. 1039 00:34:14,118 --> 00:34:15,958 Thanks again for listening, and have a great 1040 00:34:15,958 --> 00:34:16,458 day.

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Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast

Ben Stegink, Scott Hoag

On the MS Cloud IT Pro Podcast, Scott and Ben discuss the Microsoft Cloud with a focus on IT Pros. They'll discuss the latest in Microsoft 365 and Office 365 News, Azure news and talk about their experiences with managing the Microsoft Cloud as well as interview industry experts on various cloud technology. They'll cover things such as SharePoint, Exchange, Microsoft Teams, PowerShell, Azure, Azure AD, Security, Networking, Storage, and the many other technologies and products that have made their way into the Microsoft 365 suite and Azure. To stay up-to-date on the latest in Microsoft Cloud news and gain some valuable knowledge as you deploy it within your own organization, make sure to tune in every week! Find out more at msclouditpropodcast.com.

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