Introduction

  • 8 minutes

Organizations that run their workloads on-premises but are looking to move to the cloud can easily migrate to Business Central online. By moving to the cloud, users get the benefits of cloud scenarios such as Machine Learning, Power BI, Power Automate, and others to drive suggested actions. You can use the built-in migration tools to migrate data to Business Central online from specific product versions. The on-premises solution must use SQL Server 2016 or a later version, and the database must have compatibility level 130 or higher.

Currently, you can migrate to Business Central online from the following products:

  • Dynamics GP 2015 and later versions

  • Business Central on-premises

Currently, you can migrate to Business Central online from the earlier versions 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19. You can also switch to online from the current version.

If you are currently on a version of Dynamics NAV, you must upgrade to Business Central on-premises, and then switch to Business Central online.

Prerequisites and considerations

The following is a list of prerequisites and considerations you should review to migrate on-premises data to Business Central online:

  • The customer must have a Business Central online tenant.

  • The person who runs the migration must be signed in as an administrator of the Microsoft 365 tenant as well as Business Central online.

  • The on-premises solution must be on the list of supported migration paths.

  • The on-premises database must be ready:

    • The on-premises solution must use SQL Server 2016 or later

    • The database must have compatibility level 130 or higher

    • Update statistics and reorganize indexes on all tables on the source database

  • At least one user has SUPER permissions in the target company in Business Central online.

  • Consider reducing the amount of data that you migrate.

  • Schedule the migration so as not to conflict with an update of Business Central online

  • Install the migration apps in Business Central:

    • In the Business Central administration center, open the environment that you intend to migrate your data to, and then choose the Apps action. Make sure that these apps have the latest updates installed:

      • Intelligent Cloud Base

      • Business Central Intelligent Cloud

    • If you are migrating from earlier supported versions of Business Central, you must also make sure the following apps are updated:

      • Business Central Cloud Migration – Previous Release

      • Business Central Cloud Migration – Previous Release [code for your country/region-specific version]

    • If you are migrating from Dynamics GP, make sure that the following apps are installed and updated:

      • Dynamics GP Intelligent Cloud

      • Dynamics GP History SmartLists

In Business Central online, install, publish, or upgrade the Intelligent Cloud Base extension first, and then the product-specific extension or extensions.

You can migrate the data that you want to take with you to the cloud. But if your Business Central online storage exceeds 80 GB, some administrative tasks are disabled. We recommend that you consider reducing the amount of data that you migrate so that it's less than 30 GB in each migration run.

In certain cases, the customer may want to migrate very large amounts of data. In those cases, you must first run the assisted setup once to create a pipeline, and then contact Support to increase the limitations on Business Central online. There are no firm limits on the size of the database, the number of daily transactions, or the number of users that can migrate from on-premises to Business Central online.

Don't set up cloud migration for a production environment that is already in use for business. You risk that the migration process overwrites data that is needed to run the business. Even if your migration targets a different company in that environment, the risk exists that the upgrade overwrites data that is shared across companies in the target environment.