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Insane Mode FAQ

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What is Insane Mode?

Insane Mode is a setting found in the ShareGate Desktop app that allows you to migrate or import your content and objects faster than before both On Premises and for Microsoft 365.

For On Premises, Insane Mode uses the server extension (version 1.8.3 or greater) on both your source and destination servers. While for Microsoft 365, Insane Mode uses Microsoft's Migration API that allows us to move huge volumes of data facilitated by your Microsoft Azure storage account.

Is my data secure?

Microsoft uses impressive encryption security. This means that even if an attacker would be able to break into Microsoft facilities to obtain your data (which in itself is highly improbable), the data itself would be unreadable. Microsoft Azure uses AES CBC 256 Standard encryption. AES encryption such a successful method that it is used by the U.S. government to protect their data. With AES encryption, both the sender and the receiver of the data must have the same key in order to decrypt and read data.

Your data is encrypted with AES CBC 256 Standard encryption whether you are using the default or custom storage account.

The key to your storage account will be stored on a local database within your machine, but is not viewable unless you download a manifest package with ShareGate Desktop, which acts as the sole holder of the key related to your azure container.

Once the migration is completed and the data has successfully been uploaded to Microsoft 365, the only thing left to do is to delete the data associated to the migration in your Azure storage account. The steps to delete the associated data can be found here.

Note: When using the default storage account, your data is automatically deleted after a maximum of one week.

Should I install the Server Extension needed for Insane Mode on my production server, and if yes, are there any exceptions?

Yes, for On Premises migrations we highly recommend installing the server extension on your production server, without exception. Please see our server extension article for instructions on installing it on you WFE (Web Front End) server(s).

The server extension is not needed for migrations to Microsoft 365.

When we use Insane Mode on our production server, will there be an impact on users who access it?

Insane Mode generally has less of an impact on your server(s).

For Microsoft 365 (which does not require server extension installation), Insane Mode allows ShareGate Desktop to quickly push files to Azure, where the Microsoft Data center pushes them back in place properly at your source environment. Everything is hosted in the cloud, so there is minimal impact.

For an On Premises migration, Insane Mode allows the data to be obtained at a quicker rate than Normal Mode, so though there will be an impact, it will again be minimal as long as you have the server extension installed (since this results in less calls for each operation).

Always keep your performance options in mind. These are separate from Insane Mode or Normal Mode (Insane Mode and Normal Mode are migration settings, whereas performance options pertain to server requests). Play around with the performance options to find the amount of simultaneous requests you can comfortably allow to minimize impact on your server. The setting can also be adjusted during a live migration, so you are in control the whole time.

What Limitations are associated to Insane Mode?

Here are our most common limitations for Insane Mode:

Please note that an Insane Mode migration to Microsoft 365 is most beneficial for Copy Content procedures. In a Copy Structure, site objects (with exceptions) are re-created with the proper settings at the destination. The impact gets lowered if most of the content is structural. Having the server extension properly installed always lowers the chance of any potential issues.

You can access a full list of our migration limitations here.

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