Question

Migration from a Novell Groupwise environment to Exchange 2003

Exchange 2003, Novell GroupWise, Active Directory, Exchange migration, GroupWise, .

A question submitted on SearchExchange.com

Hi, I am interested in a migration from a Novell Groupwise environment to Exchange 2003 (We already have MS Active directory).

Currently there are 3 primary sites in the US, each with their own Mail servers and approx 6 remote sites around the world that utilize one of the primary US servers (With another as a backup)

Can you tell me what the best practices for this type of migration are and if there are any specific design considerations that should be taken into account?

We are doing the same thing for over 2500 users. We are implementing Exchange 2007 with three main entry points and local mailbox/CAS servers at each site. WAN bandwidth is expensive so we did not plan on having any centralized services. Users have been used to having a local mailbox server in their old GW/Exchange environment. We have had direct support from Microsoft for this project. I recommend that you investigate what services they may have to offer your organization.

Good luck!

The project will go well if you PLAN - PLAN - TEST - TEST - IMPLEMENT -TEST - TEST - MONITOR. The more PLANNING you put up front... the more effective the implementation will be. Testing is another critical part of your project.