Monday February 09 2004

FreeEmailMigrations.com

WHAT'S NEW

ABOUT

• Purpose & Concept
• History
• Why?
• Disclaimer

SOFTWARE

• Rocket
• Spark
• GroupWise Bulk Migration Tool
• Tools

DOCUMENTATION

• The Basics
• THE ULTIMATE ROCKET GUIDE!
• Rocket Configuration Guide
• Rocket End User Guide
• Rocket Sales Kit
• Rocket SOW
• Rocket Project Plan

KNOWLEDGE

A MIGRATION PRIMER
• A Migration Primer
• Messaging System Deployment Guide
• Migration Strategy Guide
• Coexistence Strategy Guide
• Migration Process Guide
• Migration Issues Guide


MIGRATION STUFF
• Example Migration Checklist
• Example Migration Jumpstart Guide
• Example Migration Roadmap
• Example Best Practices

RESOURCES

• Open Cranium
• IT Ethics Newsletter
• infonition

The Basics

Until I have enough time to post all of my associated knowledge on email migrations and Rocket, in particular, this will have to do for now. Fear not, I will have much more detailed information up by the end of February 2004. Until then, here's the basics.

Rocket is well suited for any size email migration. From 50 mailboxes and below to tens of thousands of mailboxes or more, Rocket can handle them all.

Rocket is nothing more than a Microsoft Access database with lots of VB code tied to it. The sole purpose of this database is to generate a series of files, called automation files. In addition, there is a small VB/C utility whose sole purpose is to read some of those automation files and simply run a series of commands, wait for each command to complete and then move on to the next command. There are a bunch of other details, but that's the core of it.

OK, so how does this facilitate email migrations? Well, we will use Rocket's primary platform over the years, Microsoft Exchange, to demonstrate how it is used. Microsoft Exchange comes with a fairly powerful migration utility called the Microsoft Exchange Migration Wizard. This tool works great, but there are a few tricks to getting it to really work well within any given environment. In addition, it has a feature which is rarely used, but is one that Rocket fully exploits. This feature is the ability to completely automate it's functionality through the creation of automation files and the proper command line arguments.

So, here's how it all works. First, you import your mailbox information from your legacy system into Rocket along with details about your legacy email environment and your new email environment. The PC where you run Rocket is called your Rocket Workstation and all that is required on this machine is the Rocket database and VB6 installed. Next, you create some Migration Workstations. Migration Workstations are simply PC's that have the required migration tools installed for your particular email migration. For instance, if migrating to Microsoft Exchange, you would install the Microsoft Exchange Admin Tools (Exchange Migration Wizard), terminal services, legacy email client and Outlook. Check the migration wizard manually to make sure it operates properly. Now, you can describe your migration environment to Rocket in terms of the number of Migration Workstations you have and where they are located. Once this is complete, you are ready to define migration sessions and begin migrations. The mailboxes defined within Rocket can be assigned to different migration sessions. You can then kick-off a migration from Rocket. What this does is generate the automation files and sends them to the various Migration Workstations. Once that is complete, all you have to do is connect to the Migration Workstations and kick off different terminal sessions that launch Rocket on these workstations, sit back and watch a completely automated email migration.

Trust me, it's really not all that hard to pick up and use, especially once I have all the rest of the documentation up on this site.

Contact:  Gregory J. Deckler