Why Most Fax Migrations Fail
I've seen it dozens of times. An organization decides to move from RightFax to cloud. The vendor promises a "seamless migration." Three months later, faxes are failing, numbers got lost in porting, and nobody knows why the EHR integration stopped working.
Here's the reality: fax migrations are hard. Not because the technology is complex - it's not - but because fax touches everything. Email systems. Document management. EHRs. Compliance workflows. Audit trails. Phone systems. When you move fax, you're not just moving fax. You're touching every system that depends on it.
The vendors selling you migration services? They don't understand your integrations. They've never seen your custom workflows. They're going to follow a playbook that assumes you're a vanilla deployment. You're not.
The "Big Bang" Trap
Vendors love "big bang" migrations because they're cheaper to execute. One weekend, flip the switch, done. But what happens Monday morning when 20% of your faxes aren't going through?
In healthcare, that means prescriptions don't get filled. In legal, that means court filings get rejected. In finance, that means deals fall through. A failed fax migration isn't an IT problem - it's a business crisis.
My Approach: Phased Migration
I don't do big bang migrations. Instead, I design phased rollouts that let you validate every step before committing. If something breaks, we catch it while there's still a working system to fall back on.
Discovery & Documentation
I map every integration, every workflow, every fax number. Most organizations don't even know everything their fax system touches until we do this exercise.
Parallel Operation
We run old and new systems side-by-side. Inbound faxes go to both. Outbound starts on the new system for low-risk traffic first. We validate deliverability before touching anything critical.
Integration Migration
One integration at a time. Test. Validate. Move on. If the EHR integration has issues, we fix it before touching the document management system.
Number Porting
The scariest part of any migration. I handle the coordination with carriers, validate every number, and maintain rollback capability until we're 100% confident.
Decommission
Only after everything is validated do we turn off the old system. And even then, we keep the rollback option available for a burn-in period.
Sometimes Hybrid Is the End State
Not every migration ends with "100% cloud." Sometimes the right answer is a permanent hybrid architecture:
- Cloud for general traffic, on-premise for high-security departments
- On-premise primary with cloud failover for disaster recovery
- Cloud for new locations, legacy systems for established sites
I'll help you figure out what makes sense for your organization - not push you toward whatever's easiest for me.
Technologies for Hybrid & Migration
The tools I use to make migrations actually work:
etherFAX SEN
Secure Exchange Network bridges on-premise and cloud seamlessly.
OpenText Cloud Fax
Native cloud extension for existing RightFax deployments.
FaxCore Hybrid
Bridge FaxCore to cloud while maintaining on-premise control.
T.38 Gateways
Protocol bridging for legacy analog systems.
SIP Trunking
Eliminate PRIs while keeping on-premise fax servers.
Custom Middleware
When off-the-shelf solutions don't cut it.
Compliance During Migration
Migration doesn't give you a compliance holiday. I ensure audit trails remain intact, BAAs stay valid, and you're never exposed during transition: