Practices to Consider during Notes to Exchange Migration

Organizations tend to focus on things that are able to give a productivity hike to their businesses. Choosing a competent email platform is a big challenge that requires in-depth analysis of various applications. A combination of cost effectiveness, scalability, reliability, and efficiency in one platform makes it robust and powerful. However, lack of all these most important attributes is the reason that organizations decide to switch to other email platforms. In this context, the two high-potential email platforms include Microsoft Exchange and Domino Server that are aimed at facilitating similar tasks, however, differ in myriad ways.

The client side of Domino is Lotus Notes, which is a featured application and offers great experience to users. On the other hand, the client used by Exchange server is Microsoft Outlook that offers excellent features and astounding flexibility in functioning. As you know that both platforms work well, yet people are seen migrating from Notes to Exchange Server.

Organizations prefer to deploy Exchange instead of Notes; their users also find MS Outlook more competent than Notes. IBM Lotus understands that emailing is easy, and hence puts most of its efforts in collaboration part, while Exchange allows users to do much more in addition to emailing, which is a major focus without affecting its smooth functioning. In other words, Exchange users spend a lot of time in emailing part and its management. Besides, Domino Server is a bit complicated to understand and learn as compared to Exchange Server as well as demands high maintenance.

Well, this is a basic reason that users are aware of. Various other technical causes compel users to migrate to Microsoft Exchange Server and cannibalize the sales of Notes.

In this demanding age, users cannot do a great job only by sticking with emailing. There are many other tasks to do. Would it not be peachy if you were allowed to perform various tasks within a single package? Yes, this is what MS Exchange is best known for. Organizations are rapidly crossing the geographic boundaries and planning to migrate to an all-in-one email platform like MS Exchange.

Since the reason for migration is well understood, let us understand some best practices that you must implement while carrying out the task; go through the following:

Consider Running Test Migrations before Original Migration

It is always a smart idea to know the results of what you are going to perform because knowing the limits and issues in advance is important so that they do not hinder the process during original migration. Moreover, if you undergo a number of tests, it will help you assess the capabilities and performance of each server. Once tests are done, go through the logs and track how many messages it failed to migrate. This is how you can give a good shape to your final migration process without any interruptions and issues.

Keep a Watch on Maintenance

Maintenance is one of the most important practices for a successful migration process. If you have scheduled Domino maintenance when productivity is low, such as weekends or after office hours, do you think it is a good time for migration to take place? In most cases, migration during maintenance is just taken for granted and organizations decide to initiate the process in the mean time. Ignoring maintenance during migration may result in various problems. Therefore, it is important to move maintenance window when migration is about to take place. Note that you may meet the situations when Exchange backups are required to run often, keep this thing in mind throughout the process.

Scale Log Volumes

Scaling the log volumes is important because the databases of Exchange Server are written to the log files. When you migrate from Lotus Notes to Exchange, (since all the data is new) it will be written to transaction log files before it commits to database. If you do not scale log volumes, it is quite possible that they fill up while migration is in progress. You may also consider circular logging instead of volume scaling or just take the backups more frequently however, make certain that you are taking full and error-free backups.

Use Configuration Options

Whether it is Outlook or any other application, you cannot be so sure that it will work the same way for one organization as it does for another. It is important to know that to make it appropriate for particular organization; you need to consider using configuration options. In this context, let us take a simple example of Outlook data file, PST. Outlook has the ability to support two PST file formats, UNICODE and ANSI standard. ANSI standard PST limits its capacity to 2 GB, while UNICODE is capable to store up to 20 GB. In this case, you need to use configuration options accordingly. Many other configuration options will benefit you in various ways when implemented.

Keep a Check on Replication Latency

Replication Latency is the time taken by a transaction to complete and the transaction occurs in primary database and applies to replicate database. Replication Latency includes Replication Agent processing, network usage, and Replication Server processing. Let us discuss it in regard with Notes to Exchange migration. One great built-in feature of Domino Server is Database replication, which clearly indicates that user mail files and Directory in Domino have several replicas. In this case, a migration application is required that allows replication latency so you do not lose email messages.

You must consider these important factors while going through IBM Lotus Notes to Exchange Server. However, there is nothing to wonder if you encounter any issues during the process, as chances are lot. To avoid any complications, you can simply avoid performing manual process and bring an external software application into action alternatively. The software will just require some essentials and perform migration with full efficiency.