Reference Materials for Migration 8.15 - Tips and Tricks

Group Policy Object Link Migration

Migration Manager does not migrate group policy objects (GPOs) from one Active Directory domain to another, regardless of whether the source and the target domains belong to the same or different forests.

However, you can use Microsoft Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) to migrate group policy objects from one domain to another in conjunction with the GPMCExport utility from the Migration Manager for Active Directory Resource Kit.

The GPMCExport utility allows you create a mapping file in the format required by GPMC. When you later migrate group policy objects from one Active Directory domain to another, you can use the created mapping file to let GPMC automatically translate all source security principles (specified in GPO security descriptors) into the corresponding target objects.

For more information on the GPMCExport utility, refer to the Quest Migration Manager for Active Directory Resource Kit User Guide.

Quest Reporter provides a number of reports on group policy that can be useful for analyzing the current group policy design and planning for GPO migration. These reports are:

• Group Policy Object Summary – Displays links and other details for Group Policy Objects, but no settings or security.
• Group Policy Objects – Displays the details for selected Group Policy Objects, such as the name, security, links, settings, and other properties.
• Linked Group Policy Objects – Displays the details for Group Policy objects that are linked to objects in the directory.
• Unlinked Group Policy Objects – Displays the details for GPOs for which no links could be found. You may want to delete these unlinked GPOs if they are no longer required.

You can also find additional information on using GPMC for GPO at http://technet.microsoft.com. Try searching for “Migrating GPOs Across Domains”.

Migration Cookbook

We recommend that you create a migration cookbook: a detailed, step-by-step guide of the migration activities specific to your environment that outlines a repeatable process that can be tested and then mirrored throughout the environment.

This is particularly useful in the case of delegated migration, which is when a number of independent administrators located in different sites migrate the accounts they are responsible for. The cookbook can be given to all of the delegated administrators to standardize the migration tasks.

Mail Redirection between Source and Target Exchange Organizations

To ensure that users do not lose their mail during the migration period, and to make the migration from source Exchange organization to target smooth, Migration Manager establishes mail redirection between the source and the target Exchange servers.

Accordingly, Migration Manager requires the source and target Exchange organizations be connected using SMTP connectors. For step-by-step instructions for setting up, configuring, and testing the connectors, refer to the Exchange Environment Preparation documents for your particular environments.

Additional SMTP addresses are used for mail redirection. You should analyze your environment for SMTP namespaces and for redirection implement SMTP address templates that are not being used.

Outlook Offline Folders

One widely-used Microsoft Outlook feature is offline access to mailbox folders. The offline folders (OST) file is stored on a user’s computer and keeps a local replica of the corresponding folders in the user’s Exchange mailbox.

There may be a number of the remote users in your source environment who work with local offline folder (OST) files and only occasionally connect to their Exchange mailboxes. Because each OST file is associated with only one Exchange mailbox and cannot be used with any other mailbox, a user cannot continue using the same OST file with the new mailbox after migration.

Migration Manager for Exchange allows you keep the existing OST files without OST file resynchronization when a remote or laptop user’s mailbox is switched and the Outlook profile is updated.

The mailboxes of these users should be grouped in Remote Users Collections and processed separately from other mailbox collections after the directory synchronization has been completed and before the mailbox synchronization is started.

The mailboxes of the Remote Users Collections are processed by the Mail Source Agent only. The agent creates target mailboxes corresponding to the source mailboxes in a Remote Users Collection. While a mailbox is being processed by the agent, it is unavailable to the user. Therefore, it is recommended to schedule process of Remote Users Collections for a time when the users normally do not use their mailboxes, such as 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. or during the weekend.