The most efficient way for GroupWise to Exchange migration!

I am writing this article, keeping in mind the need of those users who are planning to migrate from GroupWise to Exchange.

Each email platform possesses its own feature set, benefits and pitfalls. Whenever a user plans to perform email migration, there can be various reasons behind that such as: user’s personal preferences, change in technology, and change in business needs, cost factor, organization structure change or some other business related needs.

Migrating from one platform to another is really very difficult if the organization size is large. Migrating thousands of mailboxes from one email platform to another is a very time consuming and chaotic task that consumes a lot of efforts and funds.

Before planning to migrate from GroupWise to Exchange, Once have a look at the article:http://recover-email.blogspot.in/2013/01/pros-and-cons-of-groupwise-to.html 

Want to migrate from GroupWise to Exchange?

If you are planning to migrate from GroupWise to Exchange then you can have to face several challenges.

Migrating from GroupWise to Exchange is going to turn too costly for you. The migration cost includes hardware cost, setup & administration cost and further trainings and maintenance costs are also involved.

The most important cost factors and challenges while GroupWise to Exchange migration are admin costs (Exchange licensing fees and challenges), Hardware costs, increased admin efforts labor and time.

Exchange licensing fees and challenges: 

• CAL license for Exchange server
• CAL license for Windows server
• Other add-ons such as: antivirus, team collaboration, backup etc. 
• Exchange resources and equipments cost 
• Migration tool license for each user to migrate his mailbox data from GroupWise to Exchange
• End user license cost and other costs for purchasing new licenses or re-licensing the older ones

Hardware costs:
Exchange server, Storage resource, Increased data archival & retention requirement, 64-bit hardware (32 bit needs to be replaced).

Increased admin efforts labor and time:
Windows server installation, Exchange and active directory setup and configuration, change in network topology, reconfiguring or re-licensing the add-ons and other applications to make them compatible with Exchange.

Other contributing factors that lead to increased admin efforts are:
•    Pre-migration planning and scheduling
•    Purchase Migration tool
•    Test after deployment, archive the old mailbox data
•    Post migration training, maintenance and assistance.

Technical training to the administrator, helpdesk, and the staff for working with Exchange is also required. In beginning it can cause lost productivity as the user is un-familiar with the new technology. He needs to learn a lot for having good working hands with the new interface.

The major drawback of migrating from one platform to another platform is the commotion in workflow and productivity. Obviously the increased learning cost and time disrupts the user productivity and work efficiency.  Also you will require external help and assistance while performing the migration process.  The whole migration process, setting up the infrastructure and system maintenance, all these together require expert assistance and consultation. So, some organizations prefer to upgrade their existing systems instead of opting migration from one platform to a new one.

How to migrate from GroupWise to Exchange?

We can’t neglect the benefits and features of Exchange. However it depends on the personal choices and business s needs which email platform will be suitable for the user. Each email platform has its own significance, pros and cons. Migration from one Email platform to another totally depends on the user Needs and concerns.

Using Exchange has its own benefits such as flexible integration and collaboration, easy management, new functionalities.

Take care of the following things before migrating from GroupWise to Exchange:

1. Prepare a pre-migration assessment report: It should contain an estimated hypothesis for how and how much of the data will be migrated. What will be the prerequisites, the achievable thresholds and deadlines? You must track your time to time migration process.

2. Stipulate the Exchange mailbox data: How will you migrate from the GroupWise objects to Exchange? You need to create an Active directory for the Exchange mailboxes. Then choose to create the GroupWise directory objects via a mechanism that can make them compatible to Exchange Active Directory objects.

3. GroupWise to Exchange integration:  While migrating the GroupWise objects to Exchange, you must take care that the GroupWise Address Book and Exchange Global Address List are properly synchronized. Both must contain the same entries for users, distribution groups, and resources. You also need to ensure that the message size and format is intact before and after migration. Mail routing between GroupWise to Exchange can be done by SMTP routing technique. To achieve mail flow between GroupWise to Exchange you can either use Exchange 2003 Connector for Novell GroupWise or SMTP forward domain.

4. Perform a preliminary trail migration: it is just like a sample migration and will make you aware of the issues and challenges that you can have to face while performing full migration. It let you Identify the risks and their management techniques involved throughout the migration process. It will help you prepare a migration baseline by determining the speed of a pre-known fixed amount of data migrated in a controlled environment on a single migration server. Thus you can conclude the estimated time span you will require to accomplish the full migration process. You can also estimate the required disk space along with the data transfer throughput.

5. Perform data migration: The final step is to perform the data migration by using some efficient GroupWise to Exchange migration software. Once it is done you must track the amount of data successfully migrated, skipped or migrated with errors. Also check the migration activity logs to track the errors and the warnings during the whole migration progression. 

One of the most important steps in performing GroupWise to Exchange migration is choosing an efficient “GroupWise to Exchange migration software “.  Obviously you will not like to buy such software that is not worthy. Your money and your valuable data both matters a lot, no loss can be tolerable.

So before purchasing a GroupWise to Exchange migration software:

•   Thoroughly go through the website’s product page
•   Read out the software’s features carefully (of course, it must contain all that you want)
•   Check out the system specifications
•   Have a look at the user help manuals
•   Check out the software providers help & support page. Does it provide proper technical assistance if required.
•   Is there money back guarantee or refund policy?
•   Run the trail version. If happy with the output, then only go for the full version purchase.

Hopefully, it would prove helpful in performing a successful GroupWise to Exchange migration. 

Your comments and feedback are welcome.