What Is Migration Manager?
Migration Manager for Active Directory is an efficient, flexible, and comprehensive solution for restructuring your Active Directory. Migration Manager for Active Directory includes capabilities for “pruning and grafting”, directory redesign, and Active Directory-to-Active Directory migration. In addition, Migration Manager for Active Directory allows migrating user accounts from Active Directory to Microsoft Office 365. With Migration Manager for Active Directory, major changes to your directory structure can be safely managed with no disruption to daily activities.
Migration Manager for Exchange, a companion application to Migration Manager for Active Directory, allows administrators to migrate user mailboxes, public folders, and other Exchange data from one Exchange organization to another in a way that is transparent to the end-users and does not impact user productivity. In addition, Migration Manager for Exchange allows migrating user mailboxes from an on-premises Exchange organization to Microsoft Office 365. Migration Manager for Active Directory and Migration Manager for Exchange are designed to be used together.
Throughout this document, “Migration Manager” applies to both Migration Manager for Active Directory and Migration Manager for Exchange. When a particular component is referenced individually, the information applies only to that component. Unless a specific Exchange version is meant, "Exchange" denotes any supported version of Exchange organizations, servers, mailboxes, etc.
This guide will help you in deploying Migration Manager, including planning, environment preparation and product setup.
A list of terms and product components named in this document is provided in the Glossary.
Architecture
Migration Manager consists of several components that work together as shown in the figure below:
Figure 1: Components of Migration Manager
Active Directory Lightweight Directory Service Database
The Active Directory Lightweight Directory Service (AD LDS) or Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM) database instance is used to store the migration project information, such as the domain pair configuration, migration and synchronization job configuration, resource processing tasks, and delegation information.
SQL Configuration Database
The SQL configuration database is used to store Exchange migration project information, such as the source and target Exchange organizations and the agent and job configuration.
Console
Migration Manager is usually installed on a separate computer (server or workstation) that is referred to as a console. Depending on your environment and requirements, you can manage your migration project using one or multiple consoles. For more information on how many consoles to have, Migration Manager for Active Directory User Guide.
When you install Migration Manager for Active Directory, the following program components are available:
- Directory Synchronization Agent, which allows for both synchronization and migration sessions
- Resource processing components, including Resource Updating Manager and multiple processing wizards
When you install Migration Manager for Exchange, you get the following program components:
- Directory Synchronization Agent which will allow for synchronization only. Active Directory migration capabilities are disabled if you do not have Migration Manager for Active Directory installed.
- Exchange data synchronization and migration components, including public folder, calendar, free/busy, and mailbox synchronization agents.
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Note: If you are migrating both Active Directory and Exchange, you should install both Migration Manager for Active Directory and Migration Manager for Exchange and thus will have both sets of components on your console. |
A useful additional component is the Client Profile Updating Utility (CPUU, previously EMWProf), which redirects Outlook profiles to the new Exchange mailboxes after the migration. This utility is installed separately.
Agents
All migration tasks are handled by agents. Agents run on remote servers and are managed from the console.
- Directory synchronization and accounts migration is performed by the Directory Synchronization Agent (DSA). The agent connects to both the source and the target domains when processing directory synchronization and migration jobs. The DSA can run either on a separate server or on the console machine. Depending on your environment, you can use one or several DSAs to migrate Active Directory.
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Note: To avoid possible performance and synchronization speed degradation, we do not recommend you install the Directory Synchronization Agents on Exchange servers and domain controllers. |
DSA configuration and activity is controlled through AD LDS or ADAM.
- Exchange data is migrated by mailbox, public folder, calendar, and free/busy synchronization jobs. Each job involves one or more Migration Manager for Exchange agents. Agents run on agent hosts and are controlled from the console. (For details about using agent hosts, see the Migration Manager for Exchange User Guide.) The configuration of agents and jobs is stored in the SQL configuration database.
Resource Updating Manager
To update distributed resources, such as end-user workstations and file and print servers, Migration Manager uses Resource Updating Agents, which are installed either from Resource Updating Manager or using Group Policy or SMS, or manually on each computer to be updated. The Resource Updating Agents run as services.
Resource Updating Manager uses its own service account to access computers and install or uninstall the Resource Updating Agents. This is called the Migration Manager RUM Controller service account.
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Note: When using Resource Updating Manager, for every domain you can specify another account which will be used to set up the Resource Updating Agents to the computers of this domain and to run Resource Updating Agent service. |
Statistics Portal
The Statistics Portal is an optional but extremely useful component for both Migration Manager for Exchange and Migration Manager for Active Directory. The Statistics Portal provides statistics and reports about the progress and status of your migration project. You connect to the portal that retrieves information from the AD LDS or ADAM project partition and from the SQL configuration database.
Statistics Collection Agent
The Statistics Collection Agent is an optional Migration Manager for Exchange component used to collect statistical data on Exchange data migration progress.
Licensing
Migration Manager for Active Directory
The Migration Manager for Active Directory license specifies the maximum number of user accounts you can migrate and the maximum number of user accounts you can synchronize.
Directory synchronization agents obtain license information from the migration project partition stored in Active Directory Lightweight Directory Service (AD LDS) or Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM). Therefore, the agents must have access to the AD LDS or ADAM server and migration project partition. For more information, refer to the System Requirements and Access Rights document.
Migration Manager for Exchange
The Migration Manager for Exchange license specifies the maximum number of mailboxes that you can migrate.
Because Migration Manager for Exchange uses a distributed architecture, its agents obtain all license information from a single license server. By default, a server on which the Migration Manager is installed is used as the license server. Later you can change the license server using the Migration Manager for Exchange Options. Note that the agents must have access to the license server. For more information, refer to the System Requirements and Access Rights document.
Preparation Checklist
The following table lists the preparation tasks for the migration process and where to find detailed information about each.
Table 1: The list of preparation tasks
| Task | Details | Refer To |
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| Check the system requirements |
Before installing Migration Manager, make sure that the following servers meet the system requirements:
Any computer that does not meet the requirements should be upgraded before installing Migration Manager components. |
The System Requirements and Access Rights document |
| Prepare the source and target environments for Active Directory migration |
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The Preparing the Source and Target Environments for Active Directory Migration topic of this guide |
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Prepare the source and target environment for Exchange migration
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Dedicated Exchange environment preparation documents | |
| Set the required permissions | Set the required permissions for Migration Manager accounts | The Migration Manager Operation Accounts section of the System Requirements and Access Rights document |
| Set the required permissions for Active Directory migration |
The following sections of the System Requirements and Access Rights document:
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| Set the required permissions for Exchange migration | The Accounts and Rights Required for Exchange Migration Tasks section of the System Requirements and Access Rights document | |
| Make other preparations (if applicable) | The Additional Pre-Installation Considerations topic of this guide |