ShareGate and Insane Mode

ShareGate is an excellent SharePoint migration tool. It features the very intriguing "Insane Mode." There are a few things worth knowing about this Mode before descending into the dark depths of content migration.

Going Insane is a choice.

Insane Mode is a settings choice for each migration job you run, and it effectively switches to using the Microsoft Migration API to transfer your content. I'm not exactly sure how it earned its name, but the main feature promoted by Insane Mode is that it can migrate content at an "insanely" faster rate than the standard method, which is called "Normal Mode."

Is the difference between the two modes wild? The effective transfer rate can vary for many reasons, so I hesitate to provide definitive timings. However, as a rough indication, on a recent project, Insane Mode loaded documents 2 to 3 times faster than the initial loads we performed using Normal Mode.

So, in most cases, it looks to be worth using Insane Mode as your default option. The question then becomes, "Well, why wouldn't you use Insane Mode?"

Insane Mode need not be permanent.

There are a few reasons to jump between the two modes. The first is that Insane Mode is optimized for loading documents faster. When setting up structure, there may be little benefit over Normal Mode. The second reason is that each Mode has its own set of limitations and advantages. For example, Insane Mode will not migrate ASPX pages. Normal Mode doesn't handle users missing from your Active Directory listing and will want to map them to a current username. So it's essential to understand the benefits of each Mode and plan accordingly.

Insane Security

The final reason touches on something called "chain of custody" and is an essential consideration for organizations with heightened concerns about security. Chain of custody is about controlling the end-to-end process for the content under migration and taking reasonable steps to safeguard the information and ensure it cannot be altered or accessed along the way.

The end-to-end process is highly secure, no matter which Mode you choose. The critical point is understanding the architectural differences so that your security team is informed and can make any additional decisions required to meet internal standards or industry regulations.

Insane Mode unmasked

The reason Insane Mode is so fast is that it generates an encrypted container in Microsoft Azure, sends the content to that container, and then injects it directly into your M365 SharePoint tenant. This approach is faster for several reasons; one is that it has reduced throttling restrictions and can queue the content for injection more efficiently than you would get over a standard internet connection. That container is always created in the same region as your M365 tenant. It features encryption in transit and at rest, with the encryption key lasting three days and the container being deleted and cleaned up automatically around ten days later. As a bonus,  Microsoft provisions this service for free - no extra charges for the storage or the service itself. Nice.

However, your security team may be uncomfortable that this automated approach has a different level of direct connection than the standard Mode or that they cannot control the encryption and destruction process. So Insane Mode allows an additional option of letting your Security team go wild, and specify their Azure Storage and critical management - giving them total control. This also means you will foot the bill for storage and management. It will not be deleted or removed automatically, for example. This can be useful in some situations, but keep off the clean-up and decommissioning processes. The longer the delay, the more likely such tasks end up on the backlog after the project has been shut down.

One last boost

If you still aren't getting the performance you hoped for out of Insane Mode, you may need to investigate your network performance and review the logs to check for throttling. Planning migrations out of core office hours will help, and to keep the security guys and M365 Administrators on their toes, you will likely want to grant consent to the SharePoint migration app. This will help reduce throttling issues further.

Further Reading

ShareGate has most of this content documented on their support site, and Microsoft also covers some of this detail. If you cannot find the supporting content, please drop me a line, and I can send some reference material to help.

Migrations are challenging at the best of times. The complexity is often underestimated, the business impacts to do with changing systems, and the budgets allocated in advance of determining the scope and scale can add additional pressures to the project. Don't hesitate to ask for advice. Data migration is a big part of what we do, turning data into information and managing it through its migration and lifecycle. Do it right, and avoid temporary insanity.