What are the Challenges with OneDrive?

Here are the 3 biggest issues Storcom sees with OneDrive:

1. Data protection–  The local sync and cloud are meant as a way to have multiple copies of data. This means that you have a copy in the cloud if you lose your local copy….right? Don’t be so sure! Local sync software is imperfect and sometimes fails.  Users may think they are backing up their important data, but it may fail for one reason or another.  The only versioning that is available is on the client-side through Microsoft’s previous version history, but this is not stored in the cloud.

2. Poor reporting tools –  There is no centralized reporting of this information for administrators to know that the CIO’s laptop has been failing to sync and the important Excel file he has been working on when he was in- flight has vanished. Or, more relevant now, working from home. His data might not be not syncing and nobody is alerted if and when his laptop’s hard drive fails.   Storcom has built customer powershell scripts to send email from a user’s laptop to let administrators know that sync has failed, but this is still very kludge.  Storcom performed a 5000-seat home drive to OneDrive migration last year and reporting became a major issue.  The fact is that OneDrive is a consumer-grade product that some people are trying to use in the enterprise.  Some companies have opted to back up these laptops, but that adds a whole additional level of overhead.

3. Lack of built-in migration tools – OneDrive migrations can be simple or they can be complex.  It’s a manual process of cleaning up permissions as well as using tools like robo-copy to move data.   Storcom has written a lot of custom powershell scripts to assist with this process but in most cases it still means cleaning up permissions etc before a migration can begin.   In fairness to OneDrive. That is really not a OneDrive migration issue but more a issue in general about cleaning up poor habits of setting permissions at the wrong levels within the file system hierarchy 

In summary, OneDrive is a good option to move data to the cloud if you are just trying to move 1-to-1 home directories to the cloud. You also have to be willing to accept its limitations as a trade off for “free storage.”  No matter where you move your data, you will probably still have some cleaning up to do from an organizational and permissions standpoint.