Exchange Migration Procedures

I'm going to be doing an interesting (not really) Exchange migration for 50 users in the next month or two. The only reason it's quasi-interesting is because they are currently in a VDI environment managed by another MSP. Having a ton of Performance issues in their whole environment which includes EHR/PM software (SRS), Exchange (2010), some eRx and eFaxing, pretty vanilla environment.

So here's my question that I think i've already answered. How would you migrate the users from exchange moving their PSTs to the new environment O365

alexntg

@Hubtech said:

I'm going to be doing an interesting (not really) Exchange migration for 50 users in the next month or two. The only reason it's quasi-interesting is because they are currently in a VDI environment managed by another MSP. Having a ton of Performance issues in their whole environment which includes EHR/PM software (SRS), Exchange (2010), some eRx and eFaxing, pretty vanilla environment. So here's my question that I think i've already answered. How would you migrate the users from exchange moving their PSTs to the new environment?

Assuming you're referring to Office 365 as the new destination, There's a few ways to go about it. You could hook up 365 to the existing Outlook installs as a second account, bring the PSTs into the archive mailbox for the new users, then later do a cutover migration. Alternatively, you could do the migration, then later import the PSTs into the archive mailboxes. On a less optimal note, if the archives are strictly time-based, depending on how your users manage mail, you could re-import the PSTs back into the main mailboxes, then do the migration (though this could lead to some sizeable mailboxes).

If the destination's an onsite Exchange server, you could just write a powershell script to batch export all mailboxes to PST, move them across, then batch import them.

GregoryHall

Elaborate a bit on the environment and where the PST's are housed?
Where are you migrating too? Office 365 or another Exchange 2010 or upgrading to Exchange 2013?

Can you get Exchange 2010 Powershell admin access on the server?

VDI= Virtual Desktop Infrastructure - are you saying they have a server farm for RDP/ VDI or are you referring to the Virtual Servers hosting Exchange and EHR instances?

Is the EHR / PM software going to be removed from the current MSP as well?

How connected to Exchange is the software and can it be pointed at an external server?

Does the EHR need LDAP connectivity to AD?

Is AD staying with the current MSP or do they have that in-house already?

GregoryHall

I also like this Exchange PST capture tool if you are going to need to import a whole network worth of PST's. It will scan and collect then you can map the PST to the user mailbox on either Office 365 or another Exchange instance of your choice. It is very network intensive so do get a maintenance window approved before you start.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh781036(v=exchg.141).aspx

@GregoryHall said:

Elaborate a bit on the environment and where the PST's are housed?
Where are you migrating too? Office 365 or another Exchange 2010 or upgrading to Exchange 2013?

Can you get Exchange 2010 Powershell admin access on the server?

VDI= Virtual Desktop Infrastructure - are you saying they have a server farm for RDP/ VDI or are you referring to the Virtual Servers hosting Exchange and EHR instances?

Is the EHR / PM software going to be removed from the current MSP as well?

How connected to Exchange is the software and can it be pointed at an external server?

Does the EHR need LDAP connectivity to AD?

Is AD staying with the current MSP or do they have that in-house already?

Greg, while you're asking for far more info than needed to tell me how you'd go about moving PSTs...i'll play ball

No Powershell Access
4 Virtual Servers in Shared Environment hosting EHR, PM, AD, and File Services, VDIs accessed via XenApp.
Yes, Moving everything in house after bad experience over the last 3 years with their current MSP.
Not at all connected.
No LDAP connectivity needed, but could probly utilize at some point for easier user management
AD is coming in house as well.

GregoryHall

Are you sure the Outlook on the VDI desktops is setup as POP3 to PST and not Exchange connected with OST cache files? If it is the case that PST files are not being used then you will need Admin access to the Exchange server to dump the mailboxes to PST. Then setup your internal Exchange instance and mailboxes and run a PowerShell import.

If you can gain Admin PowerShell access to the Exchange server you can use this write-up to dump to PST. Start by giving yourself or your login Exchange import/export rights and then skip to the middle of the doc where it says mass export and run the steps from there to dump to PST.
http://www.stevieg.org/2010/07/using-the-exchange-2010-sp1-mailbox-export-features-for-mass-exports-to-pst/

For the discovery/import side of things I like the PST capture tool
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh781036(v=exchg.141).aspx

You can also do this via PowerShell
http://www.petenetlive.com/KB/Article/0000443.htm

Report back your thoughts so we can try and hash this out.

GregoryHall

If you can you might consider just doing a direct migration from the MSP Exchange to Office 365 if that is your end goal by using a service like MigrationWiz that will be the intermediary and allow you to transfer server to cloud in one step.

http://www.bittitan.com/migrationwiz

Just a another thought

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