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Published: 2013-06-06 (at www.testlabs.se/blog) Updated: - Version: 1.0 This post will focus on having the technical prerequisites ready and in place for a successful Domino/Notes migration. Before going into any details, if you are planning to do a migration from Domino and want to use Dell Software’s Notes Migrator for Exchange, it is important to mention that there is a requirement from the vendor to use certified people for the project. If you would like to read the other parts: Part 1: Migrations – Overview Migration Accounts I recommend using three accounts, one with Domino permissions, one with Active Directory (AD) permissions and one with Exchange permissions. Domino The Domino account should be Manager for all .NSF files (database files), Editor on the NAB (names.nsf) and Reader on all users archive files. Username example: Quest Migrator/DominoDomain This is done by following the steps below: Create a new migration account in People & Groups, select the directory and People. On the right hand side, press People – Register. Fill in a proper name, I typically create an account called Quest Migrator as shown in the example below. Finally, press Register. To configure the permissions on the NAB (directory), go to Files and select the directory (names.nsf), right click, choose Access Control and Manage. Add the account by browsing for it, give it the User type: Person and the Access: Editor. (see picture below) The final step is granting the Quest Migrator/dominodomain account Manager permissions on all NSF files that will be migrated. Go to Files and select the folder where the NSF files are located. Right click and choose Access Control and Manage. Add the account by browsing for it, give it the User type: Person and the Access: Manager. (see picture below) Active Directory For the AD account, it’s recommended to be a member of “Domain Admins”. However, this is not a requirement, because delegated permissions can be used. The important aspect is that the AD account have “Full Control” over the OUs where user objects are located. The AD account also needs to be a member of “View-Only Organization Management”. If using the provision feature within Notes Migrator for Exchange (NME), the AD account needs to have “Full Control” over the OU where the contact objects are located as well. This account also needs to have Remote PowerShell enabled, use the command: “Set-User ”SA-NME” –RemotePowerShellEnabled $True” Username example: Domain\SA-NME Migration User This user is not used for logging on interactively. The important aspect with this user is that it has the correct permissions on the Mailbox Databases. Configure the databases so that the account has Receive-As permissions, this can be done by using the command below: ”Get-Mailboxdatabase | Add-Adpermission -user “SA-MIG” -extendedrights Receive-As” Username example: Domain\SA-MIG Office 365 account Most permissions are done automatically by NME but you must manually set account impersonation. This is done by using the command below: New-ManagementRoleAssignment -Role "ApplicationImpersonation" –User SA-MIG More information about the migration performance and throttling can be found by reading the provided link in the end of this post. Throttling Policies and Windows Remote Management Another thing to keep in mind is the configuration of the Throttling Policies and the Windows Remote Management. If you are migrating to Exchange 2010, make sure to configure the Throttling Policy according to the configuration below. “New-ThrottlingPolicy Migration” “Set-throttlingpolicy Migration -RCAMaxConcurrency $null -RCAPercentTimeInAD $null ` -RCAPercentTimeInCAS $null -RCAPercentTimeInMailboxRPC $null” “Set-Mailbox “SA-MIG” -ThrottlingPolicy Migration” Also make sure to configure the Windows Remote Management with the following settings. “winrm set winrm/config/winrs '@{MaxShellsPerUser="150"}'” “winrm set winrm/config/winrs '@{MaxConcurrentUsers="100"}'” “winrm set winrm/config/winrs '@{MaxProcessesPerShell="150"}'” “winrm set winrm/config/winrs '@{AllowRemoteShellAccess="true"}'” “set-executionpolicy unrestricted” If you are migrating to Exchange 2013, the throttling policies have been changed. Create a new throttling policy and assign it to the migration mailbox “SA-MIG”. “New-ThrottlingPolicy Migration -RCAMaxConcurrency Unlimited -EWSMaxConcurrency Unlimited” ”Set-Mailbox “SA-MIG” -ThrottlingPolicy Migration” SQL Server Notes Migrator for Exchange leverages SQL for saving user information (and much more). The Native Client needs to be installed together with SQL Server 2005 or SQL Express 2005, or newer. I do prefer running at least SQL 2008 R2 and I would recommend using the SQL Server instead of the Express version, since you have more flexibility of creating maintenance jobs for example. A little heads up if you are about to run a large migration, make sure to take full backups of the NME40DB so that you have a copy of it, if anything happens and also for having the logs truncated. In smaller migration projects the SQL Express version works fine, I would still recommend taking full backup of the database or dumping it to a .bak file and then backup the .bak file. Configure the account “Domain\SA-NME” as DBCreator, for allowing it to create the NME40DB during the setup of Notes Migrator for Exchange. Lotus Notes client I would recommend you to use the latest Lotus Notes client. In my last projects I’ve been using version 8.5.3 Basic or Normal client. An important thing to never forget is to install Lotus Notes in single user mode. .NET Framework 4 Make sure to install the .NET Framework 4 since this is a prerequisite for NME. I would recommend upgrading it to the latest service pack level. Antivirus If Antivirus is installed, make sure all Quest folders and %temp% are excluded from any Antivirus scans. If not it may result in slower performance and potential disruption of migrated content. Most likely, there will be a mail gateway of some kind in the environment which takes care of the antispam. In those situations, antivirus and antispam are already addressed in the Domino environment. On the target side, Exchange probably has antivirus and antispam solution installed as a second layer protection to the Transport services. As a result, I have not encountered any problems when excluding a couple of folders for the migration from scanning process. Outlook Outlook 2007, 2010 and 2013 are all supported. I’ve been using Outlook 2010 in all my projects and it have been working very well. Configure Outlook with the “SA-MIG” account, since this is the account that will insert migrated content into the Exchange mailboxes using the Receive-As permission. I’ve been learned to create and configure a Outlook profile using the SA-MIG account. Make sure to configure it for not using the cached-mode. However, in theory, a profile should not need to be created in advance, because NME creates temporary profiles during the migration. However, this step shouldn’t hurt anything either. User Account Control (UAC) It’s recommended to disable UAC on all migration servers. This is done in the Control Panel under User Accounts, Change User Account Control settings. Make sure to set it to “Never notify” and then restart the sever. Data Execution Prevention (DEP) It’s highly recommended to disable DEP, so make sure to do that. If you’re using Windows 2008 R2 like I do, then you disable DEP by running: "bcdedit /set nx AlwaysOff" Also, make sure to restart the server when this is done to allow it to take effect. Local administrator If you choose to delegate the permissions instead of using the Domain Admin group for the SA-NME account, then it is required to add the SA-NME account into the local administrators group. Regional Settings During the migration, the folder names (Inbox, Inkorgen etc.) are created based on the regional settings on the migration console. So, for example, if you are migrating a UK/English mailbox, make sure to configure the regional settings to match this and for example, if migrating a Swedish mailbox, set it to match the Swedish locale settings. With this said, I would recommend migrating users using the same language at the same time. And then change the regional settings on the migration console and continue with another region. Office 365 Prerequisites Migrating to Office 365 is like a normal migration, besides the target is a cloud service which can be a bit special. There are two requirements that needs to be fulfilled on the migration servers before starting the migration to Office 365. Install the following (select the one that suits your operation system): MSOL Sign-in Assistant: 32 bit 64 bit MSOL Module for Windows PowerShell: 32 bit 64 bit The Admin Account Pooling Utility (AAPU) is used for getting better throughput performance. The AAPU tool provides a workaround by using different migration accounts for each migration thread, instead of having one migration account with a throttling limit, you could have ten migration accounts which would give 10 migration threads in total. You can have up to 10000 migration accounts (NME 4.7.0.82). If you are going to use the AAPU, you should add the parameter below into the NME Global Defaults or Task Parameters. [Exchange] O365UsageLocation=<xx> http://www.iso.org/iso/country_codes/iso_3166_code_lists/country_names_and_code_elements.htm For NME 4.7.0.82 the following text is stated in the release notes (always read them!): Office 365 Wave 15 Throttling: NME has been updated to better address the PowerShell Runspace throttling introduced in O365 Wave 15. In order to efficiently proceed with migrations to Wave 15, the tenant admin must submit a request through Microsoft to ease the PowerShell throttling restrictions. The tenant admin must open a service request with Microsoft and reference “Bemis Article: 2835021.” The Microsoft Product Group will need this information: tenant domain (tenant.onmicrosoft.com) version of Exchange (in this case, for Wave 15) number of mailboxes to be migrated number of concurrent admin accounts to be used for the migration number of concurrent threads to be used number of Runspaces to be created per minute* proposed limit (powershellMaxTenantRunspaces, powershellMaxConcurrency, etc.), and the number to which to increase the limit* * For the last two items in this list, the tenant admin should take the total number of threads across all migration machines and add a buffer, because it is difficult to predict the timing of the Runspace initiation. It is best to assume that all potential Runspaces could be created within a minute, so the values for both items should probably both be submitted as the total number. More information about migration performance and throttling can be found by reading the provided link at the end of this post. Network Ports Port In/Out Type Source Target Description 1352 Out Domino Quest NME servers All Domino mail serversDomino Qcalcon server Domino/Notes client (migration) 445 Out NetBIOS/SMB Quest NME servers All Domino mail serversDomino Qcalcon serverQuest NME master server Microsoft-DS/NetBIOS traffic for Migration. For reaching SMB shares. Note: Not required, but recommended. 389 Out LDAP Quest NME servers Active Directory DC server(s) LDAP 3268 Out LDAP GC Quest NME servers Active Directory DC server(s) LDAP Global Catalog 1025-65535 Out High-ports Quest NME servers Active Directory DC server(s)Exchange server(s) High-ports(differs depending on version) 1433 Out Microsoft SQL Quest NME servers Quest NME master server For reaching SQL DB 443 Out HTTPS Quest NME servers Office 365 Transferring migration content Notes from the field Network Monitoring or Wireshark may sometimes be your best friend during troubleshooting network connectivity. Portqry is another tool that could be of great value during initial network verification. Read through the release notes and the User Guide (PDF), it is included within the NME zip file. All information is collected into that document. Office 365 Migration Performance and throttling information Read the other parts Part 1: Migrations – Overview Part 3: Migrating Domino/Notes to Exchange 2013 On-premise Part 4: Migrating Domino/Notes to Office 365 Part 5: Migrating Resources Mailboxes, Mail-In databases and Groups Part 6: Prerequisites for Coexistence between Domino and Exchange 2013/Office 365 Part 7: Configuring Coexistence Manager for Notes with Exchange 2013 On-premise Part 8: Configuring Coexistence Manager for Notes with Office 365 Part 9: Prerequisites for Quest Migration Manager Part 10: Migrating User Mailboxes from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 using Migration Manager Part 11: Migrating User Mailboxes from Exchange On-premise to Office 365 Feel free to comment the post, I hope you liked the information. If you find something that might be incorrect/other experiences, leave a comment so it can be updated.

Published: 2013-08-07 (at testlabs.se/blog) Updated: - Version: 1.0 This post will focus on migrating Groups, Mail-In databases and Resources from Domino/Notes migration to Exchange On-premise or Office 365. Before going into any details, if you are planning to do a migration from Domino and want to use Dell Software’s Notes Migrator for Exchange, it is important to mention that there is a requirement from the vendor to use certified people for the project. This blog post is based on Notes Migration for Exchange version 4.7.0.82. Read the other parts: Part 1: Migrations – Overview Part 2: Prerequisites for Domino/Notes migrations Part 3: Migrating Domino/Notes to Exchange 2013 On-premise Part 4: Migrating Domino/Notes to Office 365 Part 6: Prerequisites for Coexistence between Domino and Exchange 2013/Office 365 Part 7: Configuring Quest Coexistence Manager for Notes with Exchange 2013 On-premise Part 8: Configuring Quest Coexistence Manager for Notes with Office 365 Part 9: Prerequisites for Quest Migration Manager Part 10: Migrating User Mailboxes from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 using Migration Manager Part 11: Migrating User Mailboxes from Exchange On-premise to Office 365 Installation Notes Migrator for Exchange (NME) The installation is a regular next/next/finish installation. During the first startup it will ask for a license file, so provide an appropriate license and the application will start. The installation and configuration instructions can be found at: http://www.testlabs.se/blog/2010/11/19/lotus-domino-exchange-2010-in-lab-part-2/ Creating batches/collections Creating batches of Groups is done through “Group Collections – Manage” and the “New collection…” option. Creating batches of mail-in databases and resources works the same way, following the steps below. Users are migrated based in batches (or collections), these batches are created through “User Collections – Manage” and pressing “New collection…”. Provide a collection name and label (label is not required). Labels can be very helpful when looking for a particular batch after creating many collections. Designating users for each batch can be done either by finding them in the directory (i.e. NME database) or by importing from a TSV file. In this example, I select from the directory because I am only selecting one user. In other cases, the TSV import may be useful. As demonstrated below, I search for a user with a Display Name that starts with Jonas. Type the desired characters in the value field, press “Add” button. You can add multiple criteria to the search filter if desired and press “Find now” when ready. The results will be shown in the search result section. Select the desired user(s) and press “OK”. The user is then added into the batch. For illustration, the picture below shows a collection of Groups. Migration finalization / switch / routing Updating routing for groups, mail-in databases and resources works almost the same as user routing. Migrations are accomplished by switching the routing and migrating the contents. NME will configure the objects with appropriate forwarding settings to ensure Domino can route email to Exchange for this specified forwarding domain. See section Notes from the field for configuring Domino mail routing. Before any changes are made, it’s good to have insight of how the objects look in Domino Administrator. See the pictures below. For more information about the objects, an LDAP browser can be used. I recommend Softerra LDAP Browser 4.5. Rooms Room100 – Restricted room “specific people”, can only be booked by the listed people. Room101 – “Owner only”, only owners are allowed to book the room, others requires owner approval. Room102 – No restrictions See the picture below for total summary of the Domino restriction settings (source: Dell Software: Pre-migration planning guide). Room switching / routing / migration From “User Collections – Migrate User Data”, select the migration batch by pressing the arrow and choosing the desired batch. When selected, press “Migrate…” Select “Manage mail routing” and press “Next”. Select “Exchange” and “Quest Coexistence Manager for Notes” with “Using ActiveMail processing”. This will configure the associated Domino object with a forwarding address. “Calendar domain: Exchange” (this is used during Freebusy coexistence, discussed in coexistence post) ”Set server running qcalcon: dominoserver/dominodomain” (specify the server that have Qcalcon installed) ”Specify your Domino domain: dominodomain” (specify your Domino domain) Check “Set mail forwarding address” ”Forwarding mail domain: exchange.testlabs.se” (Domino need to route mails to this SMTP domain) Select ”Append Domino domain to forwarding address” ”Overwrite existing mail forwarding address: Always” Then press “Next”. If Exchange mailboxes have forwarding/targetAddresses configured, these can be removed using this option as well. In my test case, I don’t have these configured, so I will let them be unchecked. Press “Next”. When switching (routing) mailboxes, with sufficient hardware, I typically run this operation with at least 20 threads (simultaneous processes). However, in this scenario it is being performed on a couple of mailboxes, so I left it with 1 thread. Press “Next”. A summary is shown, press “Next”. The operation can be scheduled but, in my case, I want to run it now. Press “Next”. The operation starts… …and it was completed. Press “Exit”. When the operation is complete, you can verify that the object in Domino directory has been updated. Note that the Forwarding address (known as “mailaddress”) now is configured, the Mail system (known as “mailsystem”) is configured to Other Internet Mail (has a value of “5”) and Domain value has been deleted. Migrating data Since the mail routing is complete and new mail will route directly to the Exchange mailbox, it’s time to migrate the data. One thing to keep in mind before starting the migration, is verifying the mailboxes were created with the correct mailbox type. In this scenario it should be created as “Room Mailbox”. This can be verified by running the PowerShell command: Get-Mailbox room* | ft DisplayName,Resourcetype –Autosize If they were listed as User Mailboxes for some reason, they could easily be changed to Room Mailboxes by running the PowerShell command: Get-Mailbox room* | Set-Mailbox –Type Room Similarly, for Mail-In databases to Shared Mailboxes, verify they are listed as shared mailboxes. If needed, change the type by running the PowerShell command: Get-Mailbox mail-in-databases* | Set-Mailbox –Type Shared Before the migration, one of the target mailboxes had 1 item and a total of 4 kb. All others had zero items, shown in the picture below. Using PowerShell command: Get-Mailbox room* | Get-MailboxStatistics | ft displayname,itemcount,totalitemsize –Autosize Go to “User Collections – Migrate User Data”, select the migration batch and press “Migrate…” Select “Migrate mailbox data”, press “Next”. In this scenario, I didn’t use the notification options. However, these can be helpful for letting users know that they are migrated and should start to use Outlook instead of Notes. Press “Next”. Select the data types you wish to migrate. I decide not to migrate Trash and the Archive. Everything else will get migrated. Press “Next”. Select the preferred conversion method for DocLinks. For this example, I used “Notes .NDL attachment (requires Notes client to use after migration)”. Press “Next”. Select “Through Domino server(s)”, press “Next”. Select “Server-based mailbox”, press “Next”. In my scenario, I want to migrate everything, but the filtering options can be very useful in projects that might require migrating (or pre-migrating) a subset by date or size. After selecting the appropriate settings, press “Next”. When migrating mailbox data, I commonly run it with 8-12 threads (simultaneous processes). You will need to determine the setting that is best in your environment. This is normally done before or during the pilot phase of the project to ensure the optimal configuration is ready for production migrations. In this scenario, I am just migrating three resources so I leave it with 1 thread. Press “Next”. A summary is shown, press “Next”. I want to start the migration now. However, if that’s not the case, you have the opportunity to schedule it. Press “Next”. The operation starts… …during the operation… …operation completed. Press “Exit”. For this example, the migration throughput rates are low because we migrated a couple of test mailboxes with a small sampling of data. As you scale your migrations to include additional mailboxes and threads, much higher throughput rates will be achieved. This was done in a lab environment using slow disks and small amount of memory. When the migration is completed, I recommend comparing item counts and mailbox sizes, but you will need to account for data compression differences between Domino and Exchange. I’ve seen differences between 20-35% depending on the circumstances. This means a Notes mail file of 1 GB may be 1,35 GB in Exchange. However, this is just a rule of thumb and needs to be estimated with actual data from each project since every customer is unique. Verify the item count and mail data size by using the same PowerShell command: Get-Mailbox room* | Get-MailboxStatistics | ft displayname,itemcount,totalitemsize –Autosize The picture below shows that there are now a total of 5 items and 17 kb of data in the mailboxes. Group migrations We created one Group collection/batch at the beginning of this article. For illustration the two Groups will be migrated into Active Directory (AD) / Exchange. The first group, called “Finance”, is a Multi-purpose group (could be compared with Security Group in AD) that could not only be used for mail but also controlling permissions. The second group called “Marketing”, is Mail-only group, which could be compared to a Distribution Group/List in Exchange and is only used for distribution mails. ‘ Let’s start the provisioning process within “Group Collections – Provision”. Select the desired group collection and press “Provision groups…” Verify the Group Type for the collection and the path are correct. Also, verify the container for external contacts is correct. Check the option “Keep groups in sync with corresponding Notes groups”, this option will make sure that the group is updated with the correct members. Press Next. A summary is shown, press Next. I want to run the task Now, press Next. The result is shown. Press Exit. Groups were created successfully in the correct OU. Verify the members are correct. Looks fine… The owner/manager (ManagedBy) is also migrated over. If groups are updated in Domino on a regular basis and they need to be maintained in AD/Exchange, a scheduled job could be created to automate this process. Information about how to create a scheduled job can found in the Administration Guide of NME included with the software. Permissions / Delegation / Restrictions during migrations The following quote from the User Guide regarding migration of delegated users outlines the prerequisites quite well for getting the delegates over to Exchange. The permissions on normal Domino mailboxes are migrated IF the prerequisites above are fulfilled. I would like to recommend investigating both the Resources and the Mail-In databases regarding restrictions, who has permissions to book and who is the owner before starting the migration. This can either be done in Domino or using an analyzer tool, like MessageStats. Changes regarding migration of delegates have been made in the last version of NME (version 4.7.0.82). These optional variables has been added and could be used, more information can be found in the release notes for NME. [Exchange] MigrateResourceDelegation=<#> GrantResourceOwnerFullAccess=<#> MigrateMailInDBOwner=<#> Notes from the field Dell Software – MessageStats – The tool can be of great value for analyzing and investigating environments before starting migrations. More information is available here: http://www.quest.com/messagestats/ Domino SMTP routing – This can be difficult to understand if you haven’t been working with Domino or been involved in any migration projects before. I posted an article about coexistence that goes through the configuration steps: http://www.testlabs.se/blog/2011/01/03/coexistence-between-domino-and-exchange-2010-%e2%80%93-part-1-of-2/ Proxy server – One thing that can be a potential issue during migrations is proxy servers. I recommend avoiding them as much as possible. If you can avoid them you will most likely save yourself some issues that might occur if a proxy server is used. These tend to block or throttle traffic, the impact can be either that the migration throughput will be very low or that it will prohibit the traffic from reaching its destination. Creating batches/collections – If you are involved in larger migration projects, you likely won’t want to find each user manually. As an alternative, you can search by a Domino Directory value that is unique to each migration batch. Another method for adding users to the batch is using TSV files. If you choose this approach, Excel will become your best friend. Pre-stage/Delta migration consideration – In cases where it’s possible, I recommend starting the migration right away after the pilot has been approved. This means that the mailbox data can be migrated over/synchronized before the actual migration must take place. By pre-staging data, the mailbox switch/routing can be done fast and finally the mailbox delta data (differences) can be migrated. This can minimize the “migration time”. By this, I mean the time that the end-users are impacted in some way or another. One thing to keep in mind if using this method is that as soon as a mailbox is created in Exchange, the Free/Busy requests from other Exchange users sent to this newly created user won’t be sent back to Domino (where the most current data remains and action should take place). I have requested a feature from Microsoft that would make the “forwarding” of Free/Busy requests possible, but haven’t heard anything back from them yet. It would be great if that could be solved, probably easily by using targetAddress attribute together with a new attribute, for ex. forwardfbreq set to either 0 (default) or 1. Don’t hesitate to comment if you would like to add anything or if you have other experiences, I will add it into the post and link your blog. Next post will be published after the holidays, in the meanwhile enjoy the vacations stay tuned after summer for new publications, we I start of with Coexistence Manager for Notes.

Published: 2013-06-21 (at testlabs.se/blog) Updated: - Version: 1.0 This post will focus on migrating Domino/Notes to Exchange 2013 On-premise. Before going into any details, if you are planning to do a migration from Domino and want to use Dell Software’s Notes Migrator for Exchange, it is important to mention that there is a requirement from the vendor to use certified people for the project. This blog post is based on Notes Migration for Exchange version 4.7.0.82. If you would like to read the other parts see the section “See the other parts” Installation Notes Migrator for Exchange (NME) The installation is a regular next/next/finish installation. During the first startup it will ask for a license file, so provide an appropriate license and the application will start. The installation and configuration instructions can be found at: http://www.testlabs.se/blog/2010/11/19/lotus-domino-exchange-2010-in-lab-part-2/ Creating batches/collections Users are migrated based on batches (or collections), these batches are created from “User Collections – Manage” and by pressing “New collection…” Give the collection a name and label (label is not required). Labels can be of great help if looking for a particular batch after creating many collections. Choosing which users that should reside in the batch can be done either by finding them in the directory (i.e. NME database) or by importing them from a TSV file. In this example, I chose find them from the directory because I only select one user. In other cases the TSV import can be useful. As demonstrated below, I search for a user with a Display Name that starts with Jonas. Type the desired characters in the value field, press “Add” button. You can add multiple criteria to the search filter if desired and press “Find now” when ready. The results will be shown in the search result section. Select the desired user(s) and press “OK”. The user is then added into the batch. Migration finalization / switch / routing When migration batches/collections have been created we are ready to start the migration. It is basically done by switching the mailbox and migrating the contents. NME will configure the Domino person document with appropriate forwarding settings to ensure Domino can route email to Exchange for this specified forwarding domain. See section Notes from the field for how to configure Domino mail routing. Before any changes are made, the mailbox properties typically looks like the picture below. It has an Internet Address (same as email addresses in Exchange i.e. SMTP). Go to “User Collections – Migrate User Data”, select the migration batch by pressing the arrow and choosing the correct batch. When selected, press “Migrate…” Select “Manage mail routing” and press “Next”. Select “Exchange” and “Quest Coexistence Manager for Notes” with “Using ActiveMail processing”. This for configuring the Domino mailbox with a forwarding address. “Calendar domain: Exchange” (this is used during Freebusy coexistence, discussed in coexistence post) ”Set server running qcalcon: dominoserver/dominodomain” (specify the server that have Qcalcon installed) ”Specify your Domino domain: dominodomain” (specify your Domino domain) Check “Set mail forwarding address” ”Forwarding mail domain: exchange.testlabs.se” (Domino need to route mails to this SMTP domain) Check ”Append Domino domain to forwarding address” ”Overwrite existing mail forwarding address: Always” Then press “Next”. If Exchange mailboxes have forwarding/targetAddresses configured, these can be removed by using this option. In my case I don’t have these configured, so I will let them be unchecked. Press “Next”. When switching (routing) mailboxes, with sufficient hardware, I typically run this operation with at least 20 threads (simultaneous processes). However, in this scenario it is being performed on a single mailbox, so I left it with 1 thread. Press “Next”. A summary is shown, press “Next”. The operation can be scheduled but, in my case, I want to run it now. Press “Next”. The operation starts… …and it was completed. Press “Exit”. When the operation is complete, look at the user in Domino directory, it is a bit different. Note that the Forwarding address now is configured, the Mail system is configured to Other Internet Mail and Domain value is empty. Migrating data Since the mail routing is completed and all new mail will route directly to the Exchange mailbox, it’s time to migrate the data. Before the migration was started, the mailbox only had 4 items and a total of 254 kb, shown in the picture below. Using PowerShell command: Get-MailboxStatistics jonand | ft displayname,itemcount,totalitemsize –Autosize Go to “User Collections – Migrate User Data”, select the migration batch and press “Migrate…” Select “Migrate mailbox data”, press “Next”. In this scenario, I didn’t use the notification options. However, these can be helpful for letting users know that they are migrated and should start to use Outlook instead of Notes. Press “Next”. Select data types you wish to migrate, I decide to not migrate Trash and the Archive. Everything else will get migrated. Press “Next”. Select the preferred conversion method for DocLinks. For this example, I used “Notes .NDL attachment (requires Notes client to use after migration)”. Press “Next”. Select “Through Domino server(s)”, press “Next”. Select “Server-based mailbox”, press “Next”. In my scenario I want to migrate everything, but the filtering options can be very useful in projects that might require to just migrate the last year’s contents and not attachments that are over 10 MB. When you have select the appropriate settings, press “Next”. When migrating mailbox data, I commonly run it with 8-12 threads (simultaneous processes). You will need to determine the setting that is best in your environment. This is normally done before or during the pilot phase of the project to ensure the most optimal configuration is ready for production migrations. In this scenario, I am migrating a single mailbox so I leave it with 1 thread. Press “Next”. A summary is shown, press “Next”. I want to start the migration now. However, if that’s not the case, you have the opportunity to schedule it here. Press “Next”. The operation starts… …during the operation… …operation completed. Press “Exit”. For this example, the migration throughput rates are low because we migrated a single mailbox with a small sampling of data. As you scale your migrations to include additional mailboxes and threads, much higher throughput rates will be achieved. This was done in a lab environment using slow disks and small amount of memory. When the migration is completed, it’s a good recommendation to compare item counts and mailbox size, but you will need to account for data compression differences between Domino and Exchange. I’ve seen differences between 20-35% depending on the circumstances. This means a Notes mail file of 1 GB may be 1,35 GB in Exchange. However, this is just a rule of thumb and needs to be estimated with actual data from each project since every customer is unique. Verify the item count and mail data size by using the same PowerShell command: Get-MailboxStatistics jonand | ft displayname,itemcount,totalitemsize –Autosize The picture below shows that there are now 51 items and the mailbox holds 886 kb. Notes from the field Domino SMTP routing – This can be difficult to understand if you haven’t been working with Domino or been involved in any migration projects before. I did post an article about coexistence that goes through the configuration steps, read it here: http://www.testlabs.se/blog/2011/01/03/coexistence-between-domino-and-exchange-2010-%e2%80%93-part-1-of-2/ Proxy server – One thing that can be a potential issue during migrations is proxy servers. I recommend avoiding them as much as possible. If you can avoid them you will most likely save yourself some issues that might occur if a proxy server is used. These tend to block or throttle traffic, the impact can be either that the migration throughput will be very low or that it will prohibit the traffic from reaching its destination. Creating batches/collections – If you are involved in larger migration projects, you likely won’t want to find each user manually. As an alternative, you can search by a Domino Directory value that is unique to each migration batch. Another method for adding users to the batch is using TSV files. If you choose this approach, Excel will become your best friend. Precopy/Delta migration consideration – In cases where it’s possible, I recommend starting the migration right away after the pilot has been approved. This means that the mailbox data can be migrated over/synchronized before the actual migration must take place. By pre-staging data, the mailbox switch/routing can be done fast and finally the mailbox delta data (differences) can be migrated. This can minimize the “migration time”. By this, I mean the time that the end-users are impacted in some way or another. One thing to keep in mind if using this method is that as soon as a mailbox is created in Exchange, the Free/Busy requests from other Exchange users sent to this newly created user won’t be sent back to Domino (where the most current data remains and action should take place). I have requested a feature from Microsoft that would make the “forwarding” of Free/Busy requests possible, but haven’t heard anything back from them yet. It would be great if that could be solved, probably easily by using targetAddress attribute together with a new attribute, for ex. forwardfbreq set to either 0 (default) or 1. Read the other parts Part 1: Migrations – Overview Part 2: Prerequisites for Domino/Notes migrations Part 4: Migrating Domino/Notes to Office 365 Part 5: Migrating Resources Mailboxes, Mail-In databases and Groups Part 6: Prerequisites for Coexistence between Domino and Exchange 2013/Office 365 Part 7: Configuring Quest Coexistence Manager for Notes with Exchange 2013 On-premise Part 8: Configuring Quest Coexistence Manager for Notes with Office 365 Part 9: Prerequisites for Quest Migration Manager Part 10: Migrating User Mailboxes from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 using Migration Manager Part 11: Migrating User Mailboxes from Exchange On-premise to Office 365 Feel free to comment the post, I hope you liked the information. If you find something that might be incorrect or you have other experiences, leave a comment so it can be updated.

This will be a collection of posts, regarding migrations in general in the first post will digging deeper in the following posts. Published: 2013-05-09 (on www.testlabs.se/blog) Updated: 2013-05-15 Version: 1.1 Thanks for the great input and feedback: Hakim Taoussi and Magnus Göransson Part 1: Overview I will try to keep the first post not technical since this is more common sense then anything else. In short I want to summarize some key takeaways and recommendation to stick with, explaining them a bit more in detail below. Planning Information & communication Pilot migrations End-user training Experience Minimize the coexistence time Planning Some of you might think that… well of course we are planning. But sometimes I hear people that spend like 10-15% of their total project time for planning. I would recommend you to rethink if that’s the case, and suggest that you maybe should spend at least 50% of the time for it, maybe even more (in large projects). What I mean with planning is to create a detailed migration plan, this should of course include estimations regarding how many users can be migrated per hour, how much data can be transferred per hour. Basically what this means is that the planning phase should be used for planning and verifying that everything is in place and works like it’s expected to do. For example, in the official guide from Quest Software when migrating from Domino to Exchange they calculate of 5GB/hour/migration server during good conditions. In the real world I’ve seen throughput of 20GB/h/server. With this said, it all depends… (the consultants favorite phrase) This is one of those things that needs to be tested and verified before creating a detailed migration plan, for doing a good estimation. Don’t forget to verify that the target environment have enough capacity, servers and storage. Other questions that needs clear answers can be; How is users and mailboxes provisioned? During the migration, where should new mailboxes be created? Is there information in the user attributes that needs to be migrated from Domino into AD? How will the migration process work? What requirements are there? So for the planning, think about all steps. Information & Communication With information I mean to inform everybody that’s involved in the project in one or another way. This would include the helpdesk and support, since these are the projects closest friends for helping and taking care of incidents. On the other hand we have the users themselves, here I’m talking about the end-users. If the migration will impact the users in a way they are not used to, remind to inform them a couple of weeks before they are going to be migrated, with a reminding notification a couple of days when the migration will take place. During a transition from for example, Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010, there won’t be much impact on the users, it’s more a data transfer and updating a couple of attributes in the directory so the impact is very small. In those transition projects (it depends on the customer requirements) the needs for user reminders is not that big as the migration projects. But keep in mind, it’s better they get too much information than too little. In large projects it’s a recommendation to place the information on public places like the restroom and the lunch room. Also inform the people on every place that’s possible, intranet, mail, letter, meeting and so on. In short I want to say the obvious, if the information is lacking or poor, the experience from the end-user perspective will be poor. In the end this give the result of a failed project, at least from a user perspective. Pilot migrations From the projects I’ve been a part of I’ve learnt lots of things and gained experience. One of these things is to have a good pilot, I would recommend to divide the pilot into 3 parts. Part 1 is the “Technical Pilot”, this would include the closest project members and/or only technical people that can handle issues and problems when they occur. Part 2 is the “Pilot 1” and this would include at least 10 users, spread throughout the organization, the more spread they are the better value would the pilot have. Part 3 is called “Pilot 2”, this is started when the “Pilot 1” phase is completed and the evaluations are done. Maybe some tweaking needs to be done before starting this stage (if there were issues and errors). In “Pilot 2” should at least 50 people be included throughout the organization, this last Pilot phase is used for solving any issues that occurred in previous stages, this for minimizing the impact when the real migration phase will take place. The numbers above is just examples, but might be good examples for a environment with a couple of thousand users. Before starting with “Pilot 2” the whole migration process, how object get provisioned should be well documented. It would be a recommendation to have it documented even in the “Technical Pre-Pilot”, but my experience tells me that things are changing and somewhere during “Pilot 1” the processes are getting tested and documented. End-user training As this is mentioned, in some cases it might not be needed, for instance if the moved users still keeps the same Outlook client version and the impact is very low. As we all know things are changing over time with new versions and if the user used for example Outlook 2003 with Windows XP and will be upgraded to Windows 7 and Outlook 2013, there might be a reason for giving the users a training session and some documents with instructions on how things work in the new version. If the users are migrated for example from Domino/Notes to Exchange/Outlook I would strongly recommend having training sessions were the users can attend and also bringing instructions on how things differs between Notes and Outlook, and how Outlook should be used for booking a meeting, sending a mail etc. This for making sure that the users gets a good experience and can handle the new tools. Minimize the coexistence time I’m not writing this because of lack due to products out there or the functions of them. But I’m writing this bullet for having a smoother and easier understanding, mostly for the helpdesk and the end-users. During a coexistence (freebusy/mail flow/directory synchronization) time it can be hard to troubleshoot and isolate incidents and problems. Another good reason for minimizing the coexistence time is regarding all shared resources, by minimizing the coexistence time you will reduce the impact for the end-users. So for minimizing these hours spent on troubleshooting and the work effort everyone need to put in, I would recommend to keep the coexistence time as short as it can be, without impacting the experience or business in a bad way. In short I would say, if things are working. Keep up a good pace for having a short coexistence time! Experience Last but not least, I would recommend you to select careful what project members are selected or which company that runs these kind of projects. It’s very important that they have the full understanding of what needs to be done and what impact it has for everyone involved but also the business itself. If using Quest Software, they have a requirement of using certified people for designing, installing and configuring their products. This for making sure that the result will be good and that everyone should be satisfied with it. I’m not sure about other vendors but I think they have something similar to this model. Read more Part 2: Prerequisites for Domino/Notes migrations Part 3: Migrating Domino/Notes to Exchange 2013 On-premise Part 4: Migrating User Mailboxes from Domino/Notes to Office 365 Part 5: Migrating Resources Mailboxes, Mail-In databases and Groups Part 6: Prerequisites for Coexistence between Domino and Exchange 2013/Office 365 Part 7: Configuring Coexistence Manager for Notes with Exchange 2013 On-Prem Part 8: Configuring Coexistence Manager for Notes with Office 365 Part 9: Prerequisites for Migration Manager Part 10: Migrating User Mailboxes from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 using Migration Manager Part 11: Migrating User Mailboxes from Exchange On-Premise to Office 365 I hope these key takeaways gave you some good insight and some things to think about. I would be happy to hear your comments/feedback this post. The plan is to post a new article every second week, keep your eyes open Regards, Jonas