Platform Migrations: The Advantages of Migrating Your Platform With Netmail

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1 Platform Migrations: The Advantages of Migrating Your Platform With Netmail

2 Contents Contents...2 Executive Summary...3 What You Don t Know About Migrations, But Should...5 Archiving GroupWise Data...8 User Provisioning Injecting the Data into Exchange End-User Access Conclusion

3 Executive Summary A migration to a new platform is one of the most complicated projects your organization will ever undertake and can potentially expose the organization to spiraling project costs, data loss, compliance breaches, and reduced productivity. The Old Way Traditionally, platform migrations have relied on the Big Bang approach, whereby all data is transferred directly from the legacy system into Exchange over a short period of time. While this may be the ultimate goal of an migration, transferring months, or even years worth of is inefficient, time consuming, and risky. It also often requires months of platform co-existence to make the transition from GroupWise to Exchange as smooth as possible. In addition, this approach results in much slower migration rates and does not provide end users with access to their during the migration window. Finally, if all data is migrated to Exchange, organizations will experience a bloated Exchange server right from the start, as well as incur increased storage costs associated with injecting all that data into Exchange. Although there are migration utilities that can speed up this process, these singleuse migration tools are expensive and provide no long-term benefits. A Better Way Netmail provides a unique, simplified, and more efficient strategy for migration between platforms. Through the migration functionality built into Netmail Archive, organizations can migrate their users quickly and efficiently by first moving the bulk of the messages into a centralized archiving system, rather than transferring it directly to Exchange. By collecting and archiving messages scattered throughout various systems prior to moving users to Exchange, users can then be moved in much larger groups or department and have immediate access to their live and archived messages as soon as they connect to Exchange. Strategically minded organizations are uniquely qualified to leverage available technology to meet the enormous challenges presented by an platform migration. By using an archiving solution to facilitate the migration, we can help organizations get more from their investment. Providing simplified migration and no additional licensing costs for archiving on Exchange, Netmail Archive demonstrates how organizations can do more with less. Simple. Safe. 3

4 Experience With over ten years of experience working with Novell GroupWise clients, and over four years of experience migrating organizations ranging from 0-20,000 users, Netmail offers an innovative, elegant, and cost-effective way to manage migrations. Our SAFE Migration (Simple, Accelerated, Fault-Tolerant Exchange Migration) approach an archive and inject method that provides a number of options unavailable with competitors single-use tools reduces costs, eliminates complexity, and mitigates risk. Archiving is a business necessity no longer nice to have, but a key component as important as anti-spam and anti-malware systems. Without a properly specified and managed archiving capability, organizations are at serious risk of being unable to properly and inexpensively address ediscovery and legal hold issues, regulatory compliance requirement, storage management, and data mining. (Source: Osterman Research, Inc. 2009) This white paper explains how a SAFE migration by Netmail can help your organization: Reduce the cost Eliminate user impact Mitigate the risk of non-compliance Avoid infrastructure co-existence Ensure data integrity 4

5 What You Don t Know About Migrations, But Should At first glance an migration project may seem like a simple task. It isn t. It involves many steps, such as user provisioning and data migration, user training, change management, hardware purchases, and software licensing. A migration to a new platform is a major undertaking. Done the wrong way, it is expensive, complicated, and risky. Moreover, it is never as seamless and transparent to end users as it should be. Inevitably, there are data loss and compliance breaches, both during and after migration, which can result in a greater reluctance by end users to adopt the new platform, a higher exposure for IT teams, and the dissatisfaction of Executive Management. What the Competition Does The migration approach commonly favored by our competitors utilizes a linear approach to migration which involves the purchase of an expensive migration tool to manually move accounts and all of the messages from one system to another a handful at a time. This approach often requires months of platform co-existence in order to make the transition from GroupWise to Exchange as smooth as possible. In addition, it results in much slower migration rates and does not provide end users with access to their messages during the migration window. Similarly, if all data is migrated to Exchange 2013, organizations will experience a bloated Exchange server right from the start, as well as incur increased storage costs associated with injecting all that data into Exchange. By using Netmail Archive for our transition from GroupWise to Exchange, we were able to leverage the dollars we saved by not having to invest into a separate migration tool and we were able to extend the system refresh beyond the original scope of the project. Netmail Archive allowed us to meet the need to migrate and enable a deployment policy for centralized retention and electronic discovery. I cannot stress enough how much help Netmail Archive has been. (Steve Shields, Director of Technology, Texas City ISD) The Big Bang Approach Traditionally to perform platform migrations, competitors have relied on the Big Bang approach, whereby all data is transferred directly from the GroupWise system into the Exchange system over a short period of time. While this may seem to be the ultimate goal of an migration project, transferring months, or even years, worth of information is inefficient, time consuming, and risky. It also requires the purchase and deployment of an expensive migration tool that will never be used again. 5

6 Disadvantage of the Big Bang Approach The major disadvantage of the Big Bang approach, however, is the huge volume of data that has to be transferred to the new server. There are a few red flags related to this approach that immediately come to mind. The greater the data to be migrated, the higher the complexity and length of the migration project. The larger the original GroupWise post office, the greater the risk of data corruption during the migration. If user data fails to successfully migrate, the migration process for that account must be restarted. A data dump from the GroupWise server to the Exchange server may double or triple the size of the Exchange system because of the lack of single-instance storage (SIS) to eliminate duplication of message attachments. A logical question arises: Why was the data migrated to the system in the first place? The answer is simple: The few migration tools designed to help administrators are limited in what they can do. They can only move data from one system to another; they aren t able to determine what should be moved where. Netmail s Archive First Approach Netmail provides a new, simpler, and more efficient strategy for migration between platforms. By first moving the bulk of the messages into a centralized archiving system, rather than transferring it to the Exchange 2013 system, organizations are able to migrate their users quickly and efficiently. This alone can help reduce storage costs by up to 50% or more. After the data is transferred into the new messaging environment, organizations deploy centralized archiving in an effort to contain server bloat by offloading the bulk of unwanted and historic data from the live server to an archive repository. messages scattered throughout various systems can be collected and archived prior to moving the users to Exchange Users can then be moved in much larger groups or departments, and they will have immediate access to all their live and archived messages as soon as they connect to Exchange. 6

7 Our SAFE Migration also offers additional post-migration benefits: Provides organizations with a solution for managing storage and ediscovery requirements within the new system Eliminates the cost of long-term storage on backup tape and the cost of restoring lost or accidentally deleted data by providing policy-driven retention of both messages and attachments. The Bottom Line Take equal care in choosing how to migrate to Exchange 2013 and when to migrate. By adopting our SAFE Migration, migrations can be done as quickly or as slowly as necessary. Smaller organizations may be able to migrate overnight or over a weekend. Larger or more complex organizations will require more time and may need to establish and directory co-existence for a period of time and perform a controlled migration in logical stages. The key to a smoother transition is eliminating co-existence through data extraction, injection, and validation, all prior to a user s transition. An migration does not have to be a nightmare project. By significantly reducing the size of the original message store through archiving before migrating, a fraction of the data is transferred to the live collaboration environment. This reduces storage bloat on the new Exchange server, minimizes data loss, and eliminates the need for adhering to strict timelines. What s more, 95% of the migration is handled during the archiving stage, without affecting end users. With Netmail, an migration project does not have to involve huge IT overhead and overtime, lost data, or end-user discontent. What s more, every migration project we undertake is tailored to meet your migration project s needs. For organizations undergoing migrations, consider how to enable your IT staff to: Archive before migrating, not after, thereby dramatically reducing the risk of storage bloat on the new system, and save up to 70% on overall project costs and hardware requirements; Do the bulk of the preparation for the migration project in a planned and controlled fashion without the pressure of meeting deadlines in tight, and often unrealistic, offhours timelines (weekends, overnight); Design and implement intelligent retention policies for the handling of data on the new system; Minimize the impact of an migration on end users by providing seamless access to their archives at all time regardless of the platform; Facilitate storage planning by knowing how much data will be injected into the Exchange system in advance; Conduct information sessions for end users on when the migration will occur and on how long the migration will take. 7

8 Archiving GroupWise Data Netmail s SAFE Migration an archive and inject method that provides a number of options unavailable with competitors singleuse tools includes an integrated Discovery job that can assist in planning by automatically collecting data from both GroupWise servers and native GroupWise archives. Statistical information on exactly how much data you have is critical to planning, and with our methodology, this key information is just a few mouse clicks away. Native GroupWise Archives and Outlook PST Files To determine the amount of data to be migrated as well as the location of native GroupWise archives, our competitors rely on a manual process. Native GroupWise archives must also be converted to Outlook PST files by end users prior to moving them into the Exchange system, requiring both the GroupWise and Outlook clients on end user workstations. Finally, unnecessary PST creation on the new Exchange system will result in the same problems currently caused by native GroupWise archives additional network storage, which increases the cost of the migration project. With our method, there is no need to use bulky incomplete manual processes. Moreover, as the Discovery process is so unobtrusive, it can be executed during regular business hours and then used as the building blocks for server planning. Retention Policies Netmail Archive supports an unlimited number of policies that enable administrators to set unique retention criteria for individual users, groups, post offices, domains, or the entire organization. The size and complexity of your current environment, your organization s Internet connectivity, the volume of data in your GroupWise system and the size of messages all of these factors will help you create archiving policies and determine your archiving options. By contrast, Netmail Archive helps you locate, retrieve, and archive data which reduces the administrative burden. Our SAFE Migration automates the process of locating native GroupWise archives through an administratorcontrolled task and does not require PST creation and importation. 8

9 Netmail Archive connects to GroupWise to capture and archive based on the preset policy settings. After is captured, it may be removed from the live system or stubbed; attachments are de-duplicated into SIS during archiving. Alternatively, even before archiving takes place, attachments can be stripped from their messages, stored using SIS, and then replaced with HTTP links that point to the stored attachments. When archiving does occur, attachments are temporarily re-attached to their messages to ensure that the integrity of the message is maintained. These processes help reduce the eventual storage requirements of your Exchange 2013 server and significantly slow down storage growth. The data in the archive is mapped to mail, notes, tasks, contacts, and calendar events in Exchange. The use of XML allows for 100% transparent communications between the GroupWise and Exchange systems during the migration period. It is even possible to perform ediscovery and litigation hold requests during the migration process. Direct integration with all major clients provides end users with transparent access to their archived before, during, and after the migration process. Move Only What You Need One of the trademarks of a good archiving solution is its ability to use XML technology to facilitate the transfer of electronic information to and from applications involved in different phases of ediscovery. With Netmail Archive, existing GroupWise data mail, tasks, notes, and current and future calendar events is archived to a central XML repository before the actual migration even occurs, so only a fraction of information needs to be moved to the Exchange system while all information remains available in platform-independent XML format. The Advantages of XML XML technology is a future-proof way to store, index, and retrieve unstructured and static data, which is the very nature of . The exported to XML is stored as simple files that do not require the overhead and cost of managing structured databases. This eliminates the risk of corrupt databases, and because it keeps the metadata and all together, there is no concern of losing a link between the two. In short, it ensures the organization will stay compliant over the very long term at a very low total cost of ownership. Netmail Archive leverages the XML archive as an intermediate message store between GroupWise and Exchange: data is archived from GroupWise, stored in the XML repository, and then a subset is injected into Exchange. 9

10 User Provisioning Netmail Migrate, the User Migration Utility included with Netmail Archive, is a utility that automates the process of moving users from one platform to another. The provisioning tool offers a high degree of granularity, giving administrators the option of provisioning users one by one, in groups, by post offices, or by domains. Netmail Migrate s intuitive UI does all the work of keeping track of which users have been migrated by doing a live comparison between edirectory and Active Directory, in the case of a GroupWise to Exchange migration, whereas the competition exports user lists, then manually compares migrated users against user lists, which is very time consuming and error prone. With Netmail Migrate, resources are migrated as users, which ensures a much higher success rate than that of our competitors. Provisioning enables users to access their existing mail, appointments, tasks, notes, calendars, and personal address books once they have been moved to the new Exchange system. In addition, it allows users to access stubs in Exchange and/or items directly from the archives. their mail, calendar items, and appointments. During the provisioning phase of the migration, your migration team may also quietly begin the deployment and installation of the Outlook Client to selected users throughout the organization so as to ensure that the organization is fully ready to begin using the new system well in advance of the required Cutover date. Netmail Migrate migrates user accounts, the system address book, distribution lists, proxy rights, and multiple addresses, nicknames, and aliases ensuring minimal impact on end users. It also allows original archived GroupWise data to be accessible and viewable once the migration is completed. Netmail Migrate can simultaneously provision thousands of users using pattern matching. Netmail Migrate has the ability to establish 100% mapping, allowing for a high degree of flexibility to ensure that any potential conflicts are resolved prior to the migration. Zero Company Downtime The user provisioning process can be completed over the weekend, resulting in zero company downtime. In addition, users are unaffected by the move and can log into the new client on the new system on Monday morning with complete access to all 10

11 Benefits of User Provisioning with Netmail Migrate: Provides uninterrupted access to and calendaring 100% transparent to end users No disruption to business Reduces migration project time and budget costs by up to 70% Allows seamless access to archived s through Outlook Web App Provides the foundation for retention, compliancy and ease of ediscovery Injecting the Data into Exchange 2013 With all the GroupWise data now archived in a central XML repository, there are a few options to consider. You can inject all the data into the new Exchange 2013 system, including all messages and attachments. Or you can use Netmail Archive to selectively inject data by folders, date, size, subject, keyword, or any combination of these options and more, into the live Exchange system to minimize the impact of the migration on end users. By contrast, our competitors provide only limited control of what data is injected into Exchange, allowing data injection only by date and attachment size criteria. Netmail Archive also allows you to selectively inject a combination of full messages and stubbed messages into the live Exchange system, which not only reduces storage requirements, but also provides for faster backups and restores if needed. Stubs are essentially pointers that point to the actual message residing in the archive repository. When an end user clicks on a stubbed message, its contents are retrieved from the archive repository so that the end user can view the message in its entirety. It is recommended that organizations archive and stub older messages which are not accessed frequently. The introduction of stubs into the live Exchange system also reduces the volume of data being migrated to the new system, thereby reducing server bloat, backup times, and the risk of data corruption. Although stubbing is supported in Exchange 2010 and 2013 environments, Netmail s preferred method of managing storage is through Netmail Archive s Attachment Management feature. With the larger block sizes in newer Exchange systems, stubbing is not necessarily the most effective way of reducing storage bloat. Attachment Management allows organizations to strip attachments from their messages and store them in a separate repository. Each stripped attachment is replaced with an HTTP link that points to the attachment in Netmail Store. Attachments can be stripped before or after messages are archived. If messages are archived after 11

12 attachments have been stripped, attachments are temporarily re-attached to their respective messages during the archiving process to ensure that the integrity of the original message is maintained. Our SAFE approach also provides the option of starting the injection process as data is still being archived for other users if speed is an issue. Organizations can also add multiple archive and injection servers to increase the speed of the migration. With Netmail Archive, organizations have the flexibility of choosing a tiered approach to archiving data for compliance. Here is a common three-tiered client configuration: Mail 0-30 days old is kept in the live Exchange system Mail days old is stubbed or message attachments are stripped Mail 365 days and older is archived and is accessible via Outlook Web App Data Verification and Integrity Another important consideration is the ability to verify the data before the injection process begins as the majority of migration problems are often the result of old, corrupt GroupWise data. With the direct injection method preferred by our competitors, you cannot audit the data before injecting, resulting in lower success rates. Similarly, if the data is not successfully injected, entire accounts must be re-injected which can push project timelines considerably. Netmail s SAFE methodology keeps track of each individual message on the GroupWise system as it archives, so if rerunning an archive job is required, Netmail Archive s predictive searching ability makes the process that much more efficient. Finally, direct injection does not allow for good storage management, whereas with our methodology data can be analyzed beforehand, allowing for better storage management and planning. By using a tiered approach, stub files or stripped messages do not clutter the Exchange system and end users can easily find and access their messages. Using Netmail Archive, the Exchange 2013 system remains highly available while end users are minimally affected by the system switch and their data is available to them throughout the migration. 12

13 End-User Access After the data is transferred from GroupWise to Exchange, it is important to consider how to make the transition to the new system as smooth as possible for your end users. An easy way to remove the Novell client from end-user desktops and clean up old GroupWise client files and registry settings is CleanIt a free utility from Netmail. CleanIt can be run in silent mode, so administrators can distribute it across the organization without requiring a visit to each workstation. Attachment Management With Attachment Management, no add-in is required for the Outlook Client. Once administrators configure Attachment Management in Netmail Archive, stripped attachments are automatically displayed as HTTP links in Outlook. End users need only to click the links to view their attachments. A few final procedures provide end users with full access to their archives: Stubbing To enable stubbing in Exchange, the Netmail Archive Outlook Add-In is installed on Outlook Client workstations. Stubs can then be displayed and resolved in the Outlook Client. Small stubbing icons will differentiate stubbed items from nonstubbed items in the Outlook Client. Seamless End-User Access to Data From Anywhere in the World With Netmail Search, individuals can access their live and archived from anywhere in the world. Netmail Search integrates with the Outlook Client, allowing end users to view their Netmail Archive archives and stubs directly through Outlook. Once the add-in has been installed, a new Netmail Archive folder giving users direct access to their archived items is created in the Outlook mailbox. Users can access their archives through the Netmail Archive folder directly in the Outlook Client. With a single click of the 13

14 mouse, users can easily toggle between their Outlook Client mailbox and their archives. Netmail Archive also provides Outlook Web App users with a fast, platform-independent means to access their own archives via a web browser. Training & Communication As the migration itself is a large and complicated undertaking, it can be easy to overlook the impact it will have on end users. As users are moved to a new system, they may be unfamiliar with the new collaboration environment. It is therefore essential that end users have access to training to familiarize them with the new platform. So ensure that adequate time and resources are dedicated to making the transition from one platform to another as straightforward as possible for end users. With the migration complete, the organization also has an archiving solution with retention policies in place. Providing simplified management and no additional licensing costs for archiving on Exchange, Netmail Archive demonstrates how organizations are able to do more with less. End users can be educated in a variety of ways, including: Classroom trainings Webinars Training web site and/or documents Tips & Tricks and FAQs Blogs Help desk support "Since Netmail Archive included the migration tool as part of the archiving licenses, we were able to save over 30% of the migration project investment as we didn t have to spend additional funds on a single-use migration tool. Because Netmail's migration experts took care of the platform switch and the data migration, my team was free to complete the rest of our infrastructure refresh in time to start the new school year in the new IT environment." (Jason Piazza, Director of Network Systems at Deer Park ISD) 14

15 Conclusion As organizations undertake migration from Novell GroupWise to Microsoft Exchange, they are demanding more. More than lengthy, errorprone, risky processes. With our SAFE approach, you can accelerate and automate your migration without IT costs spiraling out of control. In fact, Netmail has helped thousands of our clients lower migration costs and drive quicker ROI from their Microsoft Exchange investment. Mitigate Risk and Ensure Project Success Netmail Archive helps you move from GroupWise to Exchange with less impact on your organization. With its project-based, stepby-step migration capabilities, Netmail Archive accelerates and automates your move from GroupWise to Exchange. Simply put, Netmail Archive gives you more for your GroupWise to Exchange migration, including an enterprise class solution for managing storage and ediscovery. With being the primary means of critical communication and information transfer in corporate environments, electronic archiving and regulatory compliance are more important than ever. Countless s flow through corporate systems each day, and it is essential that organizations keep all their electronic correspondence on record. Organizations must implement adequate retention policies and maintain compliant archiving practices in order to avoid costly legal fees. As such, archiving has become a standard procedure among all organizations. Enforce Policies Fortunately, with Messaging Architects SAFE Migration, organizations can migrate their system and minimize risks, while maximizing employee compliance with organizational, legal, and regulatory rules. Netmail Archive gives organizations the ability to implement highly customizable, comprehensive, best practices-based retention policies. Furthermore, organizations can address productivity and storage problems, significantly maximizing their ROI by streamlining hardware investment, reducing IT overhead, and eliminating end-user training. Netmail Archive allows organizations to create an unlimited number of customizable policies and settings that can be applied to users in their newly deployed Exchange system. From journaling to archiving, stubbing to ediscovery, Netmail Archive ensures that all information is fully preserved and indexed for easy searching and retrieval, whether that information is extracted from Outlook, or exists within both GroupWise and Exchange systems. 15

16 Take Action There are many issues to consider when migrating systems and it is important you take the time to do the research necessary to ensure you do what is best for your organization. As a leader in risk management, Messaging Architects is at your disposal with real-life case studies, legal advice, technical resources, sample policies, information on what your peers in the industry are doing, and much more. Invest this time and protect your business from the potential costly and harmful consequences of not implementing the right solution. Contact us: [email protected] 16