Notes

Part 4: Migrating Domino/Notes to Office 365

Published: 2013-07-03
Updated: –
Version: 1.0

This post will focus on migrating from Domino/Notes migration to 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.

If you would like to 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 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

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/?p=680

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 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: testlabstrial.onmicrosoft.com” (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.

In Office 365 it’s not that easy to retrieve the mailbox statistics, Thomas Ashworth released a great script that retrieves the mailbox statistics. It can be found here: http://blogs.technet.com/b/thomas_ashworth/archive/2012/04/11/get-an-office-365-user-statistics-report.aspx

Verify the item count and mail data size by using the PowerShell command:

.\GetMsolUserReport.ps1

The picture below shows the output (CSV) from the script above, there are now 18 items and the mailbox holds 220 kb.

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 data sample. 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 complete, 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 script and command like before starting the migration:

.\GetMsolUserReport.ps1

The picture below shows that there are now 62 items and the mailbox holds 850 kb.

Alternatively, the Mailbox Comparison Report available in MessageStats can be used compare the source and target data.

Notes from the field

Quotes from the Dell Software User Guide PDF to think about when migrating to Office 365.

Using Microsoft Online Services Directory Synchronization: Mark

this checkbox if you will use the Microsoft DirSync tool to copy the

contents of a local Active Directory to provision your Office 365

directory. Leave this checkbox unmarked if you will provision Office 365

by any other method.

Resolve attendees for [type] mail (two checkboxes, available only

for Office 365 target): Control whether NME will look up SMTP addresses in the Exchange GAL for users referenced in server data and/or archives to link to the Active Directory objects. These options are both enabled by default, but either or both can be disabled

by unmarking the checkbox(es). For example, you should unmark a

checkbox to migrate data to PST files without connecting to the

Exchange server. Disabling the Resolve attendees function may increase

migration speed in some environments, but may cause lost free/busy

information and may introduce other issues in Outlook.

Office 365 throttling recommendations – Dell Software recommendations can be found at:

https://support.quest.com/SolutionDetail.aspx?id=SOL107856&pr=Notes Migrator for Exchange

https://support.quest.com/SolutionDetail.aspx?id=SOL104973&pr=Notes Migrator for Exchange

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/?p=1042

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 3: Migrating Domino/Notes to Exchange 2013 On-premise
Part 5: Migrating Groups and Resources Mailboxes
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 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.

Jonas Andersson | Jul 3, 2013 | Exchange 2013, Office 365 | Dell, Domino, IBM, Migration, NME, Notes, Notes Migrator, Notes Migrator for Exchange, Quest, Quest Software | 12 Comments

Part 3: Migrating Domino/Notes to Exchange 2013 On-premise

Published: 2013-06-21
Updated: –
Version: 1.0

This post will focus on migrating Domino/Notes to Exchange 2013 On-premise.

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/?p=680

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.

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.

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”.

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”.

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”.

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”.

When you have select the appropriate settings, press “Next”.

When migrating mailbox data, I commonly run it with 8-12 threads (simultaneous processes).

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.

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

Another method for adding users to the batch is using TSV files. If you choose this approach, Excel will become your best friend.

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.

Jonas Andersson | Jun 21, 2013 | Exchange 2010, Exchange 2013, Office 365 | Dell, Domino, Migration, NME, Notes, Notes Migrator, Notes Migrator for Exchange, Quest Software | 11 Comments

Part 2: Prerequisites for Domino/Notes migrations

Published: 2013-06-06
Updated: –
Version: 1.0

This post will focus on having the technical prerequisites ready and in place for a successful Domino/Notes migration.

If you would like to read the other parts, see the end section of post

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.

Jonas Andersson | Jun 6, 2013 | Exchange 2013, Office 365 | Domino, Exchange 2013, Migration, NME, Notes, Notes Migrator, Notes Migrator for Exchange, prerequisites, Quest, Quest Software | 14 Comments

Part 1: Migrations – overview

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
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-Premise
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

Jonas Andersson | May 9, 2013 | Exchange 2003, Exchange 2007, Exchange 2010, Exchange 2013, Office 2013, Office 365 | Coexistence, Domino, Migration, Migration Manager, Notes, Notes Migrator, Notes Migrator for Domino, QMM, QMMEX, Quest, Quest Software | 14 Comments