Accessing Domino Archive Once Notes Has Bee Uninstalled

Alex,

Thanks for the glowing reference ... I think!?!?!? ;0)

Cameron

I'll start the answer to your post by first making the disclaimer that Enterprise Vault is not advertised as or proclaiming to be a replacement solution for Domino to Exchange migrations. Other software providers like Binary Tree and Quest have been doing that job for years so our EVDominoExchangeMigration utility is designed to complement their technologies, rather than challenge / replace them

But your questions do raise interesting points with regards to how helpful we can be in these migration scenarios, dependent on the customer's expectations on post-migration functionality for the old data, so I'll answer them as best as I can

"1. If I zero-day archive all of the user's email and just cut over to Outlook, will the users still be able to access their Domino archives with Outlook integrated and browser based search?"

Yes, if the user's Active Directory / Exchange account is added to the permissions of their Domino archive, then when you open the search apps from Outlook, the Domino archive will be listed in the drop down as an available archive to search.

"I suspect that they should be able to access the html copy of emails but not open the Domino email because they will not have Notes installed. If you cannot open the items in EV I suspect that the user will not be able to reply to or forward the email."

As you are using the search apps within Outlook from the EnterpriseVault virtual directory, and not within Lotus Notes from the EnterpriseVaultDomino virtual directory, opening the search results will render the HTML version of the email within an outlook MSG window. As such, you then have the ability to action on the viewed message (i.e. reply / forward etc). But there are gotchas here

a. Fidelity. This is the HTML rendition of the item and as such it may not always have full fidelity to the original. The basics of an email will look and feel the same, but the complex elements (i.e. dynamic links, embedded items, complex formatting etc) may be compromised.

b. Subsequent actions on the email (e.g. reply / forward etc) are not guaranteed to work seamlessly. One obvious challenge would be address resolution. For example an email sent to a Domino distribution list will be configured to reply to that same address, but in a simple switchover scenario that you outline, how will that group name be resolved without Domino in the picture or some directory consolidation between the two environments?  

The above points are just immediate challenges that spring to my mind, but the kind of challenges that true migration solutions such as Binary Tree and Quest exist to address AFAIK, and are the reason Enterprise Vault does not proclaim to be a replacement for these solutions but a complement to them

"2. Is there a way for them to be able to access their archived Domino email without Notes? I do not see anyway to modify the archived Domino archived items."

As above, the HTML rendition is available for viewing the item without Domino / Notes. As per the other thread Alex alludes to, it seems we may have a dependency for the Notes client to be installed still on the EV server to access the Domnio saveset and get the HTML rendition out, but to be honest, I have not had the time or need to thoroughly investigate and confirm that. But apart from that, on the client side, Note sis not required to view the HTML rendition

On the other hand, to access and manipulate the item in its original, not HTML, format, they would need a Domino server / Notes client. I'm not entirely sure what you mean by not seeing 'anyway to modify the Domino archived items'? What sort of modifying do you mean, generally once an item is archived in Domino, it is not modifiable anyway, you would rather need to restore, edit, re-archive if you wanted to change it? In some basic tests that I have just perfromed, the Restore action from the Outlook search apps does in fact Restore the HTML rendition to an Exchnage item that could then be modified, with the same caveats as above regarding fidelity and subsequent action support.

"3. The archive's permissions are currently based on the Domino user assigned to the archive. Once Domino archiving has been stopped will I have to manually add permissions to each archive to allow users access?"

The Domino Archive in the VAC does provide the UI to add Active Directory permissions manually. Unfortunately, there is no EVPM functionality available for permission management of Domino archives in the same way as for Exchange. Although not exactly designed for the job, you could perhaps use the EVDominoExchangeMigration utility in a batch file to automate this effort though, as it does add AD permissions to Domino archives and can be run at anytime to do so.

"4. EVDominoExchangeMigration does not change any of the archived Domino email, eh? It just updates the shortcuts that have been migrated to Exchange. Is that correct?"

Correct, it does not change the Domino archived data itself.

As above, the first thing that the utility does is add the AD permissions to the Domino archive and add the Domino archive VaultID to the Exchange mailbox hidden message as a cross reference.

The second more time intensive thing that it does is identify Domino shortcuts in an Exchange mailbox that have been migrated using either Binary Tree or Quest, as these utilities partner with EV to ensure EV for Domino properties are migrated to MAPI properties in Exchange that our utility can spot. Once it identifies such a migrated shortcut, the utility then fixes up these MAPI properties so that they will trigger a seamless retrieval of the HTML rendition of the message from the Domino archive when the shortcut is double clicked, and fixup any banner or attachment links to archived data within the body of the shortcuts so that they also work

Apologies for the long reply, but I think its length is justified to try and highlight some of the challenges and complexities of these migration scenarios. So, I hope it helps you understand what EV can and cannot do and helps you come to the right strategy with your customer, whilst keeping them fully aware of the benefits and limitations of any decisions they make

Regards
Paul