Executive Summary:
Upgrade to Outlook 2007 and then migrate legacy mailboxes from Exchange Server 2003 to Exchange Server 2007 using the new Move Mailbox wizard.
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As you learned in part 1 of this series, “Upgrading
to Exchange Server 2007,” August 2007, Instant-
Doc ID 96240, preparing your existing Exchange
Server 2003 organization for an upgrade to
Exchange Server 2007 is a multistep process,
which includes installing Exchange 2007
onto a new server, then migrating the data
from the legacy servers that your Exchange
2007 server will replace. Here, I’ll continue
explaining the Exchange 2007 migration
steps by showing you how using a new
wizard can streamline the migration
process. But before you start moving
mailboxes, I recommend that you back
up your data, choose an email client for your users,
and let your users know that they could experience
delays in accessing a Web email client to get their
Exchange email during the migration process.
First Things First: Backing Up Your Data
Before you move data from your Exchange 2003
servers to your new Exchange 2007 server, I strongly
recommend that you make a full backup of all of
your Exchange servers and Active Directory (AD).
Although I haven’t heard reports of any catastrophic
problems during a migration, having a full backup of
all of your Exchange servers and AD is a good precautionary
measure.
Upgrading to
Outlook 2007
Although you don’t have to use Microsoft
Office Outlook 2007 if your organization
is running Exchange 2007, I strongly
recommend that you upgrade to Outlook
2007 before moving any mailboxes to your
Exchange 2007 server.
Exchange 2007 has a number of new features,
such as the Scheduling Assistant and
Instant Search, that users can’t take advantage
of unless they’re running Outlook 2007.
See the Learning Path for more on the new
features in Exchange and Outlook.
Using OWA
In addition to thinking about upgrading to
Outlook 2007, it’s equally important to consider
that some users might access their mailboxes
through Microsoft Outlook Web Access (OWA).
When you move a user’s mailbox to a different
server, the user can still access the mailbox
through OWA without any configuration
changes. The catch is that the first time users
sign on to OWA after the move has occurred,
they’ll likely experience a long delay between
the time they log on and the time they can start
accessing email. Therefore, you’ll need to warn
OWA users in advance about this delay and tell
them that it’s a one-time occurrence.
In my experience, the delay typically lasts
for a minute or so, but in some situations it
could last for several minutes and even give the
appearance that the user’s Web browser locked
up. According to Microsoft, the longest delays
occur when Exchange is processing mailboxes
containing 1GB or more of data in which the
user has sorted messages using a field other
than the default, which is the date the messages
were received.
Exchange is designed to automatically create
a view of each user’s messages sorted by
the date the messages were received. Exchange
can create alternate tables for other message
views, but these tables aren’t created until
a user actually attempts to use a view that
requires them. So when someone who uses an
alternate view to sort mail logs on to OWA for
the first time after his or her mailbox has been
moved, the alternate view won’t exist yet. The
delay occurs while Exchange builds the table
for the user’s chosen view. The larger the user’s
mailbox, the longer this process takes, thus the
longer the delay that the user experiences.
As I’ve said, this delay should happen only
once. Assuming that the user gives Exchange
the chance to perform all necessary tasks,
the next time the user logs on to OWA, OWA
should respond normally.
Moving User
Mailboxes
The actual technique
for moving mailboxes
to an Exchange
2007 server is simple.
You start by opening
Exchange Management
Console. Then,
in the console tree at
the left, under Recipient
Configuration, click
Mailbox. The result
pane displays a list of
all mailboxes in the Exchange organization,
as Figure 1 shows.
Notice the Recipient
Type Details column in
Figure 1. Some recipients
are listed as having
a Legacy Mailbox, while
one recipient has a User
Mailbox. Legacy mailboxes
exist on Microsoft
Exchange 2000 Server
or Exchange 2003 servers.
User mailboxes
exist on Exchange 2007
servers.
I’m calling out these
distinctions because I
want to emphasize the
differences between
Exchange 2003 and
Exchange 2007 mailboxes.
Exchange 2007
mailboxes contain
attributes that simply
don’t exist in Exchange
2003. Because of this,
you can’t use the
Microsoft Management
Console (MMC) Active
Directory Users and
Computers snap-in
to move a mailbox
from an Exchange 2000 or Exchange 2003
server to an Exchange 2007 server. Instead, you
need to use Exchange Management Console
to do so.
Launching the Move
Mailbox Wizard
To start your organization’s mailbox migration,
open Exchange Management Console, rightclick
the mailbox you want to move, and select
the Move Mailbox command from the shortcut
menu. Exchange will launch the Move Mailbox
wizard, as Figure 2 shows.
The Move Mailbox wizard can also perform
bulk mailbox moves. To move multiple mailboxes,
in the console select all the mailboxes
you want to move, click the right mouse button,
and choose the Move Mailbox command
from the shortcut menu. As you can see in
Figure 2, you can specify a mailbox’s destination
by selecting the server, storage group, and
mailbox database to which you want to move
the mailbox.
Click Next, and you’ll see a prompt asking
what you want to do if Exchange encounters
corrupt messages during the move. By default,
the Move Mailbox wizard skips the mailbox
containing the corrupt messages. However,
you can opt to copy the mailbox but not the
corrupt messages. As Figure 3 shows, the wizard
also lets you choose to specify a maximum
number of corrupted messages to skip within
each mailbox.
Using Move Schedule
Click Next, and the wizard’s Move Schedule
screen opens. As you can see in Figure 4, you
have the option of scheduling the mailbox
move to occur at a specific time. By default, the
Move Mailbox wizard will move the mailboxes
you’ve selected immediately upon completion
of the mailbox migration via the wizard.
If you’re moving only a few mailboxes, the
default will probably be fine for you. If you’re
moving a lot of mailboxes, you’ll want to use
the scheduling feature.
You can use Move Schedule to schedule
the mailbox move to occur late at night when
the servers involved in the move are likely to
be carrying a minimal workload. Doing so is
not only an efficient way to use your servers,
but it also lets you move users’ mailboxes
after hours when they’re typically not in use.
If you’ve scheduled the mailbox move using
Move Schedule, you don’t have to come back
to the office late at night to start and babysit
the operation. (However, I recommend testing
the Move Mailbox feature on a few mailboxes
before you do a large-scale move of many mailboxes,
just to make sure that you won’t
have any unanticipated problems.)
You can choose an option in Move
Schedule that lets the wizard cancel
a task that’s been running too long,
depending on the number of hours
you’ve specified for this option. I recommend
using this option, because
I’ve seen situations in which a mailbox
had problems, but the mailbox wasn’t
recognized by the wizard as being corrupt
and caused the wizard to hang
during the move. Setting the wizard
to abort a move after a given number
of hours lets you avoid the server handing should this type of problem occur. If
you decide to set an abort threshold in Move
Schedule, make sure the time period is long
enough to cover moving your largest mailbox,
so that you don’t cancel a task unnecessarily.
Reviewing Move-Mailbox
Options
When you finish scheduling the move, click
Next, and you’ll see a screen that displays a
summary of the move options you’ve chosen,
as Figure 5 shows. Review the options, and click the Move button to move the selected
mailboxes. If you’ve scheduled a move to occur
at a later time, clicking Move gives the move
permission to occur, but the wizard will not
launch the move until the scheduled time.
When the move is completed, click the
Finish button to close the wizard. When you go
back to the Exchange Management Console,
Recipient Configuration, Mailbox node, you’ll
see the mailboxes that you’ve moved are now
listed as User Mailboxes.
After the Migration
After your migration to Exchange 2007 is done,
I recommend keeping your Exchange 2003
servers online for a couple of weeks. Although
performance problems or compatibility issues
are rare, I’ve seen posts on various Web sites
from administrators who’ve encountered such
problems after migrating to Exchange 2007. If
your Exchange 2003 servers are online, you’ll
be able to temporarily move mailboxes or public
folders back to them should you encounter
unexpected problems. (You can use the
Exchange 2007 Move Mailbox wizard to move
mailboxes from an Exchange 2007 server back
to a legacy Exchange server.)
Even when you’re confident enough in
your Exchange 2007 server that you’re ready
to retire your Exchange 2003 servers, I recommend
leaving at least one Exchange 2003
server online until you can take advantage of
the features Microsoft provides in Exchange
2007 SP1. This service pack adds features
to Exchange Management Console, such as
public folder–management capabilities, that
weren’t included in the original release of
Exchange 2007. However, since the final release
of SP1 isn’t scheduled until after Windows
Server 2008 is released, if you want to manage
public folders and perform
certain other administrative
tasks via a GUI administrative
console, you’ll need to do so by
using Exchange System Manager
(ESM) on your Exchange
2003 server, until Exchange 2007
SP1 is available. (However, if you
want to perform public folder–
management tasks via the command
line, you can do so now
by using Windows PowerShell
cmdlets in Exchange Management
Shell.)
End of Article
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