Reference Materials for Migration 8.15 - Tips and Tricks

Environment Preparation Checklist

The table below lists the preparation steps for the source and target environment that must be accomplished before you start the migration process.

You can find the detailed explanations and procedures for each step listed below in the Quest Migration Manager Installation Guide. The Quest Migration Manager System Requirements and Access Rights document will help you to set the required permissions for Active Directory and Exchange migration with Migration Manager.

Exchange Migration without Trusts

Planning migration without trust established

If you are planning an Exchange migration using Migration Manager for Exchange without having trusts established, you will need to perform the following actions:

• In the Migration Manager Console click Tools | Options, and on the License property page in the Net use connections area verify the specified account has access rights to the License Server.
• Users will have to specify the target service account using Client Profile Updating Utility when they are switched to the target server. Because there are no trusts, their source accounts will not have permissions for the target mailboxes.

To configure the Client Profile Updating Utility for Microsoft Outlook profile processing if trust relationships are not established between the source and the target domains, refer to the Client Profile Updating Utility Administration Guide.

When trusts are required

The above specified procedure is valid for the most every cases, but there are some exclusions in specific environment:

• In case the computer on which Migration Manager is installed is a member of the domain in which the Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003-based Exchange cluster servers reside and such cluster servers are in both the source and target domains, you will need trusts to be established between the source and target domains.

Active Directory Migration without Trusts

This section describes the common issues you may face if you perform an inter-forest migration using Migration Manager for Active Directory without having trusts established. In such an environment, the source and target directories are isolated one from another and there might be no transition period when both source and target accounts can be used. But the migration can still be performed without critical restrictions if the accounts are switched correctly.

Take the following steps to perform the migration:

1. Migrate the directory.
2. Process the distributed resources.
3. Process Microsoft Exchange and SMS/SCCM servers.

These steps can be performed during working hours.

The following steps should be performed one right after another or during non-business hours:

1. Process the Microsoft SQL servers.
2. Update the services and scheduled tasks.
3. Move the computers to the target domain.
4. Restart the computers.

The last two steps make up the user switch.

Each of these steps is described in more detail below.

Prerequisites

For a successful migration, the computer on which Migration Manager is installed must belong to the target domain.

Migrate the Directory

Migrate accounts from the source to the target domain in migration sessions.

The only two restrictions on this step are as follows:

• SIDHistory does not provide the target accounts with access to resources due to the absence of trust between the source and target domains. It is recommended to clear the Add SIDHistory check box on the Set Security Settings step when configuring a migration session to avoid unresolved SIDs in the target objects’ SIDHistory attribute.
• Copying local/global/universal group membership during migration does not provide the members of the target local groups with access to the resources granted to these groups. It is not recommended to select the Add source members to the corresponding target groups option in the Set Security Settings step when configuring a migration session to avoid unresolved SIDs in the opposite domain groups.

Update Distributed Resources and Microsoft Exchange and SMS/SCCM Servers

In Resource Updating Manager, add the computers to be processed and specify the administrative accounts for the processed computers (see the Resource Updating Manager online help for details).

When reassigning permissions and group membership to target users and groups with Resource Updating Manager or one of the processing wizards, select the Leave source accounts permissions check box to preserve resource access for the source accounts. This is required since the users continue using their source accounts until they are completely switched to the target accounts.

Switch to the Target Domain

The following operations should be performed one right after another or during non-business hours:

• Process Microsoft SQL servers using SQL Processing Wizard.
• Process services and scheduled tasks using Resource Updating Manager. Since there is no transition period, the update of services and scheduled tasks and the switching of user accounts should be performed one right after another. Otherwise, services and scheduled tasks will continue running under the source accounts until the users are switched.
• Move the workstations and servers to the target domain.
• Restart the computers to make the updated services and scheduled tasks still running under the source accounts run under the target accounts. You can restart the computers after moving, as described in the Resource Updating Manager help.

After that, users begin to use the target accounts.

After resources are processed and users can access their resources using target accounts, you can clean up the source accounts’ permissions and disable source accounts.