Migrating from CRM Online to CRM OnPremise

One of the really great features of Dynamics CRM is the power of choice – on-premise, online,  or partner hosted.

Very often companies say “I would like to give this ‘cloud thing’ a try but if I change my mind can I get the data so I can run CRM on our own server?” The answer is YES!

To initiate a migration, request an export of your organization’s data from Microsoft Dynamics CRM Support. Requests for trial exports are processed every Tuesday using the latest existing backup. There is no constraint on your continued use of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. New data will continue to be captured until you go to the final export stage. Continue to use it while your CRM partner or your company does a trial re-deployment of the CRM data into your CRM 2011 on-premise environment. Don’t proceed from this step to the final export until you have thoroughly tested the new on-premise environment. Like dear old mom used to tell you ” A word to the wise is sufficient”.

When you are ready to make the real switch to get the final export file, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Support will disable your CRM organization and make a full backup of the data.  The process of the final export requests starts on a Thursday; the data is prepared and published the next day – Friday. Therefore your total business week downtime will be approximately one to two business days.

Once you get the final export, restoring the data to a partner-hosted or your on-premises deployment should take less than a day. Then you will be back up and running on Monday. This presumes that you did atleast one successful trial migration.

There aren’t any fees charged to create the trial or final export files. Cancellation fees are waived when you migrate to another Dynamics CRM platform.

Additional information is available online – Microsoft CRM Online Data Migration to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 on-premises