Upgrade to 2000 is taking too long 1

[jon24422531]

Please understand that I am asking this question on behalf of my company that is struggling to migrate to Exchange 2000, and the actual upgrade/migration is to be done by a consultant. I am not familiar with the technical issues.

We currently run 5.5 on an old server (running MS 2000) that is reaching the end of it's life. There is not enough space on disk to compact it etc, and we failed in an attempt to add more space.

We have another server (nearly new) running on the network that has Exch 2000 on it but it is not in use.

Our consultant has been tasked with migrating 5.5 to the new 2000 and integrating AD, but on his test system keeps hitting problems. He is loathe to run it on our live one for this reason, but this has been an issue for 18 months.

My question is:
Could we forget the migration all together, start the new 2000 from scratch, and those users who really need to keep their old email can archive it to their local hard disk? Will this be easier, and could these users re-import their mail later?

We have around 110 users, all on Outlook 2000.

Thanks in anticipation.......

Jonathan Schofield

http://www.jonschofield.com

 

[zbnet]

It sounds to me like you need to sack your consultant and get someone round who knows what they're doing. 18 months? Sheesh!

It is possible to export mailboxes to client hard disks (a PST file), but it is a slow and painful process to do it manually from the clients - plus you'll likely get some users who do it wrong, or forget, and then on the new server it will be your problem that you haven't got their mail for them!

ExMerge is an admin tool that can automate the exporting of mailboxes to PSTs - you can do every mailbox on the server if you like. It can write the PSTs to a network drive if you're short of space on the Exchange server, although this will be slower. Exporting to PST files also breaks Exchange's single instance storage, so you'll end up with 110 PSTs that all together take up more space than the current priv.edb file on the Exchange server takes up.

 

[jon24422531]

zbnet
Thanks for your swift response. The consultant is an old friend of the boss.

If I understand you, does this mean that we could export (ExMerge) each users mailbox to another server (space is not an issue) that could be re-imported into the new 2000 as and when required? How are the individual .pst files named, can we identify which is which? Our priv.edb file is around 6.5gb, but I think a lot of that is 'white space' as we had a good purge recently.

Jonathan Schofield

http://www.jonschofield.com

 

[zbnet]

You can identify white space in the priv by looking in the application event log for 1221 records - one each for pub and priv each night (usually).

ExMerge makes PSTs named with the directory name of the mailbox - it's simplicity itself to use directory export to obtain a list of directory names against display names.

PST files can be imported back into Exchange (any version), or given to people to open via Outlook.

 

[jon24422531]

zbnet, thanks again. I shall investigate further and get back if there are any more issues. Your quick response is appreciated.

Jon

 

[Burninator]

18 months? If this is a straightforward migration it shouldn't take a week. I'm with Zbnet ask the consultant to step aside.

Are you running Windows 2000 active directory now, or are you still running an NT domain structure?

Between zbnet and me we will get you through the migration real easy!!

Exmerge can be found here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...ec-dcdf-47dc-96da-1c12d67327d5&displaylang=en

VERY handy tool. Any questions just post'm and I'll see where I can help.

 

[jon24422531]

Hi Burninator.

Thanks for your response and the useful link.

Unfortunately there are some internal politics here, and I am one of the 'Indians', not a Chief.
I have since gleaned a little more information and I think the real issue is the transformation from an NT structure to an Active Directory. It could well be that I may have to ask my query in another forum, but I will return here when I know more.



Jon

 

[Burninator]

Hey Jon,

Feel free to post here again, if you have questions. At least it will drop me an email letting me know!!

Hope things look up soon!!

Jay

 

[dennisbbb]

It sounds like the issues he had is AD, in particular the migration from NT4 PDC to Win2K AD, since Exchange 2K is fairly straightforward.

The best problem-free way to migrate your NT4 domain to a nicely working Win2K AD is to upgrade the PDC itself.