Moving mailboxes between sites/domains

[Caustic]

Hi!

We have a sister company that has had some recent layoffs especially in their IT department. As a result I would like to consolidate our e-mail servers, bringing all of their remaining mailboxes onto our server and taking their exchange server offline.

This would mean moving the mailboxes between sites and accross domains. From what I've read it isn't really possible to "move" the mailboxes. It's more like an export/import.

What is the easiest way that other have found to do this?

Thanks.

 

[AlexIT]

If the two servers are part of the same exchange organization, then the move mailbox utility will do this. Now add the other domain to your server setup (accept mail for @yourdomain.com AND @theirdomain.com), and have the MX records for the other domain changed to point at your mail server:
MX server.yourdomain.com = you.rip.add.res
MX server.theirdomain.com = you.rip.add.res

If the two servers are not part of the same organization, look at exporting the existing mailboxes to .pst files. Now do the above MX record changes, configure your server to accept mail for the old domain, create new user mailboxes for the users on your server (with the old domain SMTP addresses i.e. thisguy@theirdomain.com) and then changing their client setup to point to your mail server. You can drag-n-drop the .pst file contents to the new mailboxes.

Alex

 

[jacktar]

You can also (over a weekend), employ the Move Server Wizard (MSW) to move the other server into your site, and then 'move' mailboxes. This has some advantages, in that it will incorporate both smtp addresses (user@yourdomain.co.uk) and their addresses (user@theirdomain.co.uk) into each mailbox, and if completed on the same wire, will be much quicker/complete. Fully review the MSW notes (and preferably practise) before you start.

 

[Caustic]

Thanks for the information guys. I'll look into the MSW. So far it looks promising but potentially problematic.

The two sites are within the same organization and our sister company does not have an IMC so I don't have to worry about the MX records. Their mail is routed through a central Exchange server in St. Louis and travels over a site connector. We have full T1 between us and the sister company and us and St. Louis.