EVault used as a method to aid migration

[AdrianDonlan]

Hi
I am leading a project to de-merge a company from its parent. They have a shared exchange server with the parent company. As part of the mail solution I have proposed I specified using EValut to handle their pst's and archiving. Since I have already specified this I was wondering if I could use the Evault to assist in the migration of the users data (they have around 600Gb in the mailstore and another 400gb in pst's). The key question is whether the Evault can be attached to the parent companies mail server and then when I have built the new Exchange server attached to that instead?
Given that there will be a new domain and new infrastructure.
I'm not looking for a step by step guide but simply whether this is possible as it will have an impact on how I migrate and therefore when I purchase Evault, I'm hoping that by clever use of Evault I can reduce the time and effort involved in migrating the users mail. The last migration that the parent company performed when they purchased my company was rather a messy and painful process, I'm hoping to make it a much smoother process.

Thanks
Adrian

[JesusWept3]

Enterprise Vault could definitely assist in this process, however using EV just for a migration tool and not being used above and beyond that point, i'm not sure whether its cost effective for you. Definitely contact symantec who can tailor the licensing and possible solutions to your needs and possibly demo what it can do and how it can help.

Domain migration and exchange migration with EV is definitely very plausable.
However you may find you have to do some stuff manually later on, in regards to attaching the new users mailboxes in the new domain to the EV Server.

If possible if you could install EV in the destination (i.e. the domain you will eventually end up in) and then target the exchange in the old location, that would definitely make it go smoother.

[Liam_Finn1]

This is my view on this but I think using EV to aid this Migration will cause you some headache

The easiest way is to export their emails to PST files using EXMerge setup a new exchange server in their new domain Create the users with the same names on the new domain then again using exmerge import the emails again


The other way is to do an online Migration. Setup their new domain with Exchange. Create a trust between the two domains. Add the new domain name to the routing on your existing exchange environment and install their exchange server into your exchange environment. move their mailboxes to the new Exchange server. Replicate SIDS between the domains. Break the domain trust and do cleanup on both systems to remove the unwanted domain names.

As i said these are the ways we have done them in the past and option 1 is the cleanest. Option 2 is more complex but will allow you to keep mailbox access and even file access on file servers because if the SID migration

[AdrianDonlan]

I have been involved in several migrations before, in general I agree that using ExMerge is the 'cleanest' however there are a number (greater than 30) of mailboxes that are over 5Gb in size and these can have a tendency to corrupt. Given that thsse invariably belong to the senior partners in the firm getting them to reduce them is not really an option - believe me I have already tried. Hence the use of EVault to shrink their mailboxes first and then use ExMerge.
Also the on-line migration is not really feasable as I am not convinced that the parent will allow a trust to be setup, even if they did the company I represent is not physically in the same building and so the link between them is not suited to transferring large volumes of data.

I will contact Symantec to see what they say but the point of this was not to run up a new large consultancy bill from a symantec partner as I already face bills from the external consultants the parent company use that I have no choice but to accept.

Thanks for the advice

Adrian

[Liam_Finn1]

Happy to offer any assistance. If you need further assistance you can always find us here.

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