I wanted to write this article from a very long time and unfortunately I could not make it up. Today I decided to write this in just few lines and come back with in-depth details. Migration from One platform to other is not easy and it needs lots of planning , efforts and times. Things can go wrong at every step but just don’t give up, don’t give up, don’t give up…
- Prepare new AD forest and Install exchange 2010 in the new forest. Exchange 2010 can also be a different organization due to merger and acquisition.
- Migration cannot happen over night and its important that we make necessary configuration that users from both the forest are able to send and receive emails and they are able to see Global Address book of each other and more importantly free busy information is synchronized.
Configure mail flow between exchange 2003 and exchange 2010 using SMTP connectors for exchange 2003 and Send and receive connectors for exchange 2010
Configure FIM 2010 or ILM 2007 for GAL synchronization between exchange 2003 and exchange 2010
Configure Inter org replication tool to share free busy information between exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010
GAL sync will create Mail Enabled contacts(MEU) in the target forest, for each mailboxes in the source forest. With Custom code, FIM/ILM can also create mail enabled users(MEU) in the target forest instead of mail enabled user
If only Mail enabled users are created using FIM/ILM then you can use Prepare- MoveRequest.ps1
Prepare-MoveRequest.ps1 will convert the mail enabled contacts to mail enabled users and it will also disable the user and it will copy the follow attributes to the destination mail enabled user – legacyExchangeDN, mail, mailnickname, msExchmailboxGuid, proxyAddresses, X500, targetAddress, userAccountControl, userprincipalName
Prepare a server for installation of ADMT(Active directory migration tool). This tool will help to get the SID History and export the password of source account to destination
SID History is to maintain the access of users resources on the target domain and Password export server will help in exporting the password form source account to the destination account
I think you are all set now to move the mailbox from the exchange 2003 to exchange 2010 using the Powershell cmdlet
I think this the quick summary process of migration from exchange 2003 to exchange 2010. I am very eager to write this complete article in details. I will come back soon on this soon 🙂
Shameless Null Neutrality
Looking forward to the next article(s). The best summary I have seen so far!
Krishna,
Great write up. i am about to do exactly what you described briefly… migrate mailboxes from one forest with exchange 2003 to a new forest with exchange 2003/2010 servers. I want to get your thoughts on how to go about certain tasks. can I write to you in private? My email address is mentioned below.
Many thanks,
Venkat
Please send me these steps on my email id.
Hi Krishna, thank you for informative information you has shared here. Really you described the process in a good descriptive way. Actually i was looking for any automated tool for cross-forest migration and found one of the trusted tool by Lepide (http://www.lepide.com/exchangemigrator/cross-forest-migration.html). I will look up to your next post. Have a wonderful life!!