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On-Premises Exchange 2003/SBS to On-Premises Exchange (versions 2007 and later) Migration Guide

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Rob Latino
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Introduction

This is the complete onboarding task flow for migrating mailboxes from On-Premises Exchange servers (versions 2007 and later) to Office 365.

  • Note: DeploymentPro currently can only officially be used with migration projects where Office 365 is the Destination. If using DeploymentPro with Exchange (either On-Premises or Hosted) as a Destination, then a Proof Of Concept should be run first.

Exchange environments can have complex AutoDiscover settings, along with UPN and SMTP address mis-matches, which can require troubleshooting and reconfiguration before DeploymentPro can be made to work against such environments.

A Proof Of Concept will uncover any complications. 

Complete each step in the order listed. Links to corresponding Knowledge Base articles are provided. If your Source server is running Exchange version 2007 or later, refer to KB005020.

The MSPComplete section includes steps to deploy the Device Management Agent (DMA) to end users. Deploying DMA to end users is a prerequisite if you will be using DeploymentPro.

We strongly recommend that you use DeploymentPro to reconfigure the Outlook profiles in this migration scenario.

  • Note: DeploymentPro is included with the User Migration Bundle license. DeploymentPro cannot be purchased as a standalone service license, and it cannot be added to the single-use mailbox migration license. If you wish to remotely configure Outlook mail profiles using DeploymentPro after a migration, purchase the User Migration Bundle license.

 To see what items are included in the migration, see What items are migrated with MigrationWiz? and What items are not migrated with MigrationWiz?

MigrationWiz is a migration solution (not a synchronization solution) and will NOT propagate updates, deletes, or moves of the items previously migrated in the first migration pass because we do not have “live” monitoring of changes (as with a sync agent) and we cannot handle scenarios such as conflict resolution without user interaction.

MigrationWiz supports the capability to share migration projects across a Workgroup. When the Project Sharing feature is turned on, all Agents besides those who are Inactive can view all migrations projects. For more information, visit Project Sharing in MigrationWiz.

Prerequisites

  • Set up the new AD forest.
  • Configure forest trust.
  • Run the Active Directory Migration Tool (ADMT) to migrate objects over to the new forest.
  • Install Exchange 2013 or 2016 server into the new forest.
  • Create Exchange users on new Exchange server.
  • Set up router ports for OWA traffic. Set different OWA URLs for each environment, and configure the router ports to accept inbound/outbound mail traffic for those OWA URLs. KB005047

  

Prepare the Source Environment

  1. Set up an administrator account for migration on the Source Exchange mailbox server. KB004725
  2. EWS must be working on the Source Exchange server. KB004392
  3. Set up router ports for OWA traffic. Set different OWA URLs for each environment and configure router ports to accept inbound/outbound mail traffic for those OWA URLs. KB005047
    Note: If you have followed through all the prerequisite steps of this guide, this step will already have been completed.
  4. Test mailbox access. KB004616
  5. Configure the Exchange authentication method. KB004606
  6. Increase MAPI named property limits. KB004608

 

Prepare the Destination Environment

  1. Set up user accounts.

    Note: If you have followed through all the prerequisite steps of this guide, this step will already have been completed.
  2. Create an admin account for migration that has full access permissions to all mailboxes. KB004725
    • Set up a remote PowerShell session with Exchange 2010+. KB005111
    • To manually grant administrative access for migration, execute the following PowerShell command in the Exchange PowerShell Console:
      Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited | Add-MailboxPermission -AccessRights FullAccess -Automapping $false -User MigrationWiz Notes:
      • In the PowerShell script above, change the -User account to match the name of the admin account that was set up for migration.
      • Any user account that is a part of the domain administrator, schema administrator, or enterprise administrator groups will not have any administrative rights to mailboxes, no matter how many permissions are granted. A security default of Exchange Server is to explicitly deny any user that is a member of these groups. This is why we recommend creating a new user account specific for migration.
  3. Disable throttling against the admin account. Refer to Option 1 in KB004945.
  4. Verify mailbox accessibility using EWS.​ KB004304
  5. If you want to be able to migrate messages with attachments larger than 10MB, the following limits need to be increased:
    • Increase message size limits. KB004613
    • Increase maximum accepted content length. KB004609
    • Increase maximum receive message size. KB004532
    • Increase maximum accepted re​​​​quest length. This is only valid if your Destination server is running Exchange 2007. KB004610

 

MSPComplete Steps

  1. Create the customer. KB005421
  2. Create the Source and Destination endpoints. KB005427
    • For the Source endpoint:
      • Click EndPoints > Add Endpoint > Enter endpoint name > For endpoint type select Exchange Server 2003+.
      • Enter the OWA URL KB004392
      • Click the Provide Credentials radio button, and enter the admin account credentials for the account that was set up under the “Prepare the Destination Environment” section of this guide.
    • For the Destination endpoint:
      • Click EndPoints > Add Endpoint > Enter endpoint name > For endpoint type select Exchange Server 2003+.
      • Enter the OWA URL KB004392
      • Click the Provide Credentials radio button, and enter the admin account credentials for the account that was set up under the "Prepare the Destination Environment" section of this guide.
  3. Purchase licenses. We recommend that you purchase the User Migration Bundle license for this migration scenario. User Migration Bundle licenses allow multiple types of migrations to be performed with a single license. They also allow DeploymentPro to be used to configure Outlook email profiles. Refer to these articles for more information:
  4. Deploy DMA to users. Once DMA has been deployed to users, check the Users tab in MSPComplete. This will be populated with the user accounts that have DMA installed. DMA can be deployed by these options:
    • Via Group Policy Object (GPO).
      Note: This is the recommended methodology because no end user interaction is required. ​KB005412
    • Via email. KB005411

 

DeploymentPro Steps

  1. Launch DeploymentPro.
    1. Go to All Products > Device Management, click on DeploymentPro on the far left and follow the prompts to launch.
    2. Select a customer from the list by clicking on the customer name.
      Note: The status column will show Enabled when a customer account has had DMA deployed to users.
    3. Configure customer DeploymentPro module:
      1. Enter the Domain.
      2. Select the Destination endpoint.
      3. Checkmark the Auto-populate box.
      4. In the Client Interface Configurations section, upload your company logo and add supporting text.
        Note: We strongly recommend doing this, because this is the logo and text that end users will see in a desktop pop-up when they are prompted to reconfigure their Outlook profiles. If you do not upload your own logo, the default BitTitan logo will be included instead.
      5. Save and continue.
  2. Activate DeploymentPro module for users.
    1. Either select all users (by check-marking the box to the left of the Primary Email column heading), or select individual users (by check-marking the boxes to the left of the user email addresses).
      Note: DeploymentPro is included with the User Migration Bundle license. DeploymentPro cannot be purchased as a standalone service license, and it cannot be added to the single-use mailbox migration license. If you wish to remotely configure Outlook mail profiles using DeploymentPro after a migration, purchase the User Migration Bundle license.
    2. Click the Schedule Cutover button.
  3. Schedule the profile cutover date.
    • Set the date and time for the Outlook profile configuration to occur, and click the Schedule Cutover button.
      Notes:
      • The DeploymentPro module will install on user devices immediately and then run silently until this date.
      • The profile cutover date should be set to a date and time that is shortly after MX record cutover.
  4. On the profile cutover date, users will be guided through the reconfiguration of their Outlook profile.

 

MigrationWiz Steps

  1. Create a Mailbox Migration project. Read the How do I create a new migration project? article for more information.
  2. Add the accounts (also referred to as "items") that will be migrated to the project. KB004842
  3. Set the Project Advanced Options. KB004834
    The following options are most valuable for this migration scenario:
    • Set Maximum concurrent migrations. If the Source server has enough server resources, set this parameter based on the bandwidth guideline of three (3) mailboxes per 1MBPS of bandwidth. Therefore, for example, if there is a 10MBPS connection, we recommend setting the maximum concurrent migrations parameter to be 30. If the Source server has very few available server resources (e.g., it is running low on memory or it has a very high CPU utilization), we recommend setting this value to a lower number to avoid overwhelming the Source server with requests.
  4. Run Verify Credentials. KB004511
  5. Notify users that a migration is occurring. Send email to all users telling them the time and date of the migration.
  6. Pre-Stage pass: Select the users > Click the Start button from the top, and select Pre-Stage Migration > Under the Migration Scheduling section, from the drop-down list, select 90 days ago > Click Start Migration. KB004938
  7. MX Record Cutover. Change over MX records on the DNS provider's portal. Also include the AutoDiscover (CName) setting.
    Note: If migrating in batches and mail coexistence is required, you will not be cutting over the MX records until your final batch of users has been migrated, and you must set up mail forwarding.
  8. Send email to end users to let them know what to expect for their Outlook profile reconfiguration. If using DeploymentPro, refer to KB005799 for some sample text and screen shots that can be included in this email.
  9. Full (Delta) pass: Select the users > Click the Start button from the top, select Full Migration > Click Start Migration. KB004938
  10. Run Retry Errors. KB004658
  11. Look through the user list and click any red "failed migration" errors. Review the information and act accordingly.
  12. If problems persist, contact Support. KB004529
  13. If not using DeploymentPro, then users must create new Outlook profiles, and set up their signatures again, and reattach any PST files that were attached to their previous profile.
  14. Click the pie chart icon in the MigrationWiz dashboard to receive an email containing all the project migration statistics. KB004626

 

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