Migrator for Notes to Exchange 4.15.2 - Pre-Migration Planning Guide

Resource types

Exchange 2010 and later permit the differentiation of resources into three types: Room, Equipment and Online Meeting. The Directory Export Wizard copies the resource type designations from Domino into the object records in the SQL database, and the Provisioning Wizard then provisions the objects into Active Directory with the type designations intact.

In a common scenario, AD security objects have already been created for all users and resources, and a dirsync creates mail-enabled AD contacts that correspond to existing security objects. The Provisioning Wizard then merges the contact information (including resource types) into the existing security objects, and deletes the contacts, leaving a single mail-enabled security object in AD per user or resource. After that merge process has created mail-enabled security objects, the Data Migration Wizard can mailbox-enable the objects.

Note: If a resource appears in a collection, but no corresponding security object or contact yet resides in AD, the Provisioning Wizard can be configured to overlook the missing entities. This feature is enabled or disabled by a checkbox on the wizard’s Choose the Container for User Objects screen:

Mark the checkbox if you want the wizard to create a new mail-enabled object in AD when none is found by the wizard to correspond with a user (resource) in the collection. Leave the checkbox unmarked to disable that feature. Any such new objects will be created in the container specified by the User Container text box (on the wizard’s Choose the Container for User Objects screen).

NOTE: Use this Create new objects feature only if no corresponding contact or resource object already exists in AD. If an AD resource object exists without a corresponding contact, the wizard will simply mail-enable the existing object.

Bidirectional resource booking

Quest's Coexistence Manager for Notes (CMN) product includes a Mail Connector that supports resource booking in both directions during the transition period of a migration. In prior releases CMN did not support Notes users' booking of Exchange resources, and that limitation introduced a "double booking" problem that most admins addressed by migrating all resource objects only at the very end, after all the users had been migrated. Now that CMN supports bidirectional resource booking, you can migrate resources whenever you like.

Exchange users can book Domino resources by sending requests to the resources’ original Notes addresses. Domino then acts on the request in its reservations database the same as if it had come from a Notes user.

Notes-to-Exchange resource booking is typically accomplished by one of two methods:

The best practice for resource migration now is by one of the two methods noted above. If you do not intend to configure CMN’s Free/Busy Connector, you can migrate resource objects in the same collections with the users who use them (or whenever most of the users who use them have been migrated).

Migrating Notes groups (distribution lists)

Groups, which include distribution lists, are exported from the Domino directory by Quest’s Directory Export Wizard, so they can be provisioned correctly in Active Directory. Since the only data associated with a group is its member list, the "migration" of a group consists only of its being provisioned into AD. Migrator for Notes to Exchange includes a Groups Provisioning Wizard that can provision groups in Active Directory from a designated group collection.

When a group is provisioned into AD, it also remains on the Domino server (that is, the Notes/Domino original is copied, not destroyed or altered), and after its migration the two groups exist independently of each other. This coexistence introduces the potential for discrepancies between the two group membership lists, as group members may be added and deleted during the transition period. You can re-run the Directory Export Wizard and then the Groups Provisioning Wizard to update the AD groups’ membership lists with any changes entered into the Notes/Domino originals, but there is no practical mechanism for updating in the opposite direction, from AD back to Notes.

Since the only practical update path for groups is one-way, Notes to AD, most organizations wait until all users have been migrated before provisioning any groups into AD. This approach eliminates the need for periodic updates, and already-migrated users can address emails to Notes/Domino groups the same (transparent) way they send emails to not-yet-migrated users.

Your Migration Plan should specify whether you intend to use this "groups last" strategy or some other approach.

Migrating folder ACLs and delegation rights

By default, the Data Migration Wizard and Self-Service Desktop Migrator both preserve ACL information, including calendar and task folder ACLs, as they migrate Notes source data to Exchange. To disable this feature, you can set ACLs=0 in the [General] section of Task Parameters or Global Defaults (for the Data Migration Wizard), or in the notesdtapp.ini file (for the Desktop Migrator).

IMPORTANT: For delegates and ACLs to migrate properly: • The ACL/Delegates' mailboxes in Exchange must be mailbox-enabled. • The AD profiles for users receiving migrated ACL information in Outlook must be enabled in AD. (If the user cannot logon to Outlook, Migrator for Notes to Exchange cannot migrate the ACL data.) If you inadvertently migrate users who are not enabled in AD, you can remigrate with RemigrateMode=0 to replace the previous data (without ACLs) with new copies of the same data with ACLs.

A few other notes to keep in mind about migrating ACLs and Delegation Rights: