How Do You Turn 8,500 File Shares into a Strategic Asset Without Breaking the Business?
Project Overview
Role: Program Lead, Data Platform Migration & Financial Impact Modeling Timeline: 8 months (Jan – Aug 2022)
Platform: Enterprise File Share Ecosystem → Box Cloud Storage Impact: Migrated 8,500+ file shares with zero disruption, built financial impact model, and operationalized data governance across USAA’s enterprise
Executive Summary At USAA, I led a high-stakes, high-complexity data platform migration that touched every corner of the enterprise. We weren’t just moving files — we were rearchitecting how the business thinks about data ownership, cost, and operational readiness.
With 8,500+ file shares across user and application domains, the environment was fragmented, undocumented, and financially opaque. I treated this like a product: mapped the ecosystem, prioritized migrations, rebuilt security, and created a financial impact model that turned infrastructure into insight. The result? A seamless migration, zero downtime, and a data platform that finally made sense.
The Problem Space USAA’s legacy file share ecosystem was a black box:
8,500+ file shares with no centralized inventory
No visibility into ownership, usage, or cost impact
Application shares mixed with user shares — no categorization
Security groups outdated and misaligned
Migration to Box cloud storage was mandated — but no roadmap existed
We needed clarity, control, and confidence — fast.
Project Constraints
Enterprise-wide scope across business units and IT
Sensitive data in regulated environments (financial services)
No downtime allowed during migration
Security and compliance alignment required at every step
Stakeholders across infrastructure, security, service desk, and application teams
Process engineers engaged to map out infrastructure and firewall rules for secure data transfer
Discovery & Research
Inventory Audit I led the documentation of all 8,500+ file shares:
Identified share type (user vs application)
Mapped ownership and access patterns
Flagged high-risk shares for early remediation
Application Categorization We classified application shares into:
People-interactive applications (e.g., document workflows)
Backend systems (e.g., batch jobs, integrations) This enabled tailored migration strategies and risk modeling.
Financial Impact Modeling I built a model to:
Estimate cost savings from Box migration
Quantify support overhead reduction
Forecast long-term storage optimization
Execution Strategy
Prioritization Framework We created a scoring system to rank file shares:
Usage frequency
Business criticality
Migration complexity
Security risk This allowed us to batch migrations intelligently and reduce disruption.
Security Group Reconstruction We rebuilt security groups in Box:
Mirrored legacy permissions
Aligned with identity governance policies
Validated access through stakeholder sign-off
Operational Readiness I led the creation of:
KB articles for service desk support
Migration comms plan for each batch
Post-migration validation checklist
Stakeholder engagement playbook
Key Design Decisions
Decision 1: Treat File Shares Like Products We didn’t just move data — we managed it. Every share had an owner, a lifecycle, and a business value.
Decision 2: Build for Support We created KB articles and training for the service desk before migration began. This reduced escalations and empowered frontline teams.
Decision 3: Communicate Like a Product Launch Each migration batch had:
Stakeholder briefings
Impact assessments
Go-live comms
Hypercare support
Results & Impact
8,500+ file shares documented and categorized
100% of user shares migrated to Box
0 downtime across all migrations
100% security group alignment in Box
85% reduction in support tickets post-migration
Financial impact model adopted by enterprise architecture team
A: Share Category
B: Avg Storage GB
C: Avg Monthly Growth GB
D: Storage Tier
E: Current $/GB/yr
F: Box $/GB/yr
G: Annual Current Cost
H: Annual Box Cost
I: Annual Savings
J: Support Hours Saved
K: Value of Support Saved
Preset cells for unit rates (put anywhere on the sheet, e.g., M1:M3)
M1: Tier; N1: Current $/GB/yr; O1: Box $/GB/yr
M2: Hot; N2: 0.30; O2: 0.18
M3: Cold; N3: 0.06; O3: 0.03
M4: Archive; N4: 0.02; O4: 0.01
Support assumptions (place at P1:P2)
P1: Support hrs per 1000GB baseline; Q1: 12
P2: Avg hourly support cost; Q2: 60
Exact formulas (assume row 2 for the first data row)
Storage Tier selection (D2) — enter manually as Hot, Cold, or Archive.
Current $/GB/yr (E2) — lookup from rate table: =VLOOKUP(D2,$M$2:$O$4,2,FALSE)
Box $/GB/yr (F2) — lookup from rate table: =VLOOKUP(D2,$M$2:$O$4,3,FALSE)
Annual Current Cost (G2): =ROUND(B2 * E2,2)
Annual Box Cost (H2): =ROUND(B2 * F2,2)
Annual Savings (I2): =ROUND(G2 - H2,2)
Support Hours Saved (J2) — proportional to storage reduced vs baseline: =ROUND((B2/1000) * $Q$1 * 0.85,1) Explanation: assumes an 85% reduction in support load post-migration; change 0.85 to your assumed reduction.
Value of Support Saved (K2): =ROUND(J2 * $Q$2,2)
Lessons Learned
Data Is an Asset — Treat It That Way By mapping, scoring, and modeling file shares, we turned infrastructure into insight.
Operational Readiness Is a Culture We didn’t wait for problems — we trained, documented, and validated before go-live.
Product Thinking Wins Treating the migration like a product — with users, feedback, and iteration — made it scalable and successful.
Clarity Is the Ultimate Deliverable The inventory, categorization, and financial model gave USAA clarity it had never had before.
What’s Next
Extend financial impact model to cloud storage forecasting
Automate file share categorization for future migrations
Integrate Box usage analytics into enterprise dashboards
Build self-service migration tooling for business units
This wasn’t just a migration. It was a transformation — from chaos to clarity, from legacy to leadership. At USAA, we didn’t just move data. We moved the business forward.