Most migration checks are geared towards user accounts. Fewer are able to handle service accounts as rigorously.

On one environment, we mapped, moved, and validated every user’s account. We also confirmed the access. Cutover looked clean.

Two hours later, a reporting process automated failed silently. Then came another. Then a third integration was discovered that no one had noticed during discovery as it “just ran.”

All of these were running under service account that weren’t included in migration scope. They weren’t user accounts – they were operational Infrastructure that lived in Active Directory and wasn’t seen in the places that we were looking.

Since then, discovering service accounts is one of my first tasks on any project. It’s not that the technical work is difficult, it’s because service accounts are invisible unless they break.

#Migration #DataValidation #CloudMigration #ActiveDirectory