Migrator for Notes to Exchange 4.16.1 - Pre-Migration Planning Guide

When reporting data volumes at various stages of the migration process, MNE qualifies these numbers by specifying reported values as Compressed or Uncompressed. Notes, Exchange, and MNE measure data volumes in different ways, and compress data using different methods, which makes meaningful comparisons and analysis difficult when the numbers are unqualified. For example, a 283 MB NSF file may become 2.3 GB as migrated by Migrator for Notes to Exchange, and upon migration the target Exchange mailbox can be 439 MB. Some administrators suspect data losses when the differences are entirely due to different methods of measuring data volumes at different stages of the migration process.

To eliminate much of that confusion, Migrator for Notes to Exchange notes whether its various reported values are Compressed or Uncompressed:

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Compressed: Size of the raw data that Migrator for Notes to Exchange reads from Notes, consisting of the size of the original message and headers, and the compressed size of file attachments. (Notes compresses file attachments, but not the messages themselves.)

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Uncompressed: Size of the data after Migrator for Notes to Exchange converts it to RTF, plus its headers, and also the uncompressed size of file attachments.

Migrator for Notes to Exchange logs the sizes of objects as they are exported with the Notes API, and the sizes of uncompressed file attachments. These qualified values provide a more meaningful measure of how much raw data Migrator for Notes to Exchange is reading and processing, and should help with migration time estimates. These reporting methods support good estimates derived by comparing the Compressed data rate to the size of the source NSF files.

Test and pilot migrations

Any full-scale production migration should be preceded by test and pilot migrations, to confirm that your Migration Plan and procedures can accommodate the organization's requirements. A test migration uses real users and real data in a segregated test environment, or dummy users and dummy data in your live production environment. A pilot migration uses a small portion of real users and real data in the live production environment.

In either case—a test or pilot migration—the data to be migrated should be a representative sample of the production data, and the test or pilot migration should be run with the MNE applications set for the same configuration and process options that you intend to use for the production migration. Select test or pilot users whose usage and data types represent the total user population. Run the migration for those users as you have defined the process in your Migration Plan. When the migration is complete, review the program log files for errors or warnings. (The Quest Log File Viewer application helps you view and interpret the program log file. See the Log File Viewer chapter of the Migrator for Notes to Exchange Administration Guide for information.)

Quest recommends that you use both test and pilot migrations:

Perform one or more test migrations in a separate test environment, migrating test copies of real users and real data. The separate test environment ensures that no test process will "touch" the data or configurations in your production environment. If a test exposes problems with your Migration Plan, you can amend the plan and repeat the test by "dumping" the test environment and recreating it from scratch.

When you are confident that your test migrations have sufficiently refined your Migration Plan, perform a pilot migration for 20 to 30 users in your production environment to verify that your plan is satisfactory for your "real world."

Implications of test and pilot migrations on license counts

Any test or pilot migration can be repeated as often as necessary at no cost to your production license key since remigrations do not count in the metered use of a production license. MNE applications recognize already-migrated users and do not count them toward your license limit so you can repeat a test or pilot multiple times to refine your Migration Plan, and each user in the test is counted only once.

Implications of test and pilot migrations on statistics

MNE applications collect migration statistics through any test or pilot migration and save the statistics in the SQL Server database. These test statistics are included with the real production statistics if you let them remain in the database when the production migration runs begin.

In many cases the volume of the test statistics compared to the production statistics is so small as to be negligible. However, if you want to reset the statistics to zero, you can erase the migration server, including the SQL Server database (which contains the statistics), and reinstall the software from scratch. This approach will also erase all your MNE application configuration settings which you must recreate after reinstallation.


	IMPORTANT: Since your tests have determined your optimal configuration settings, print a copy of your configuration settings before you erase the migration server.