One of the key concerns for organizations wishing to migrate their messaging platform from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Exchange is the conversion of users’ e-mail messages. The conversion process accounts for approximately one third of the cost of the entire migration project (which often runs into millions of dollars) and significantly impacts project timelines.

One of the reasons for this is the volume of messages that need to be converted. During migration, business continuity, end-user requirements, regulatory and legal pressures result in users’ entire mailboxes and message stores being converted from Notes to Exchange – a migration conversion effort of tens, even hundreds of terabytes of legacy mail.

Infrastructure Impact

Conventional migration solutions require that users’ mailboxes are closed down and unavailable during the migration conversion process, (resulting in ‘out of hours’ migration of limited numbers of users.) The primary issue with this type of solution is the impact and overhead on the new Exchange environment as well as on the messages themselves:

• Terabytes of converted legacy messages stress the Exchange infrastructure on day one, requiring additional mail servers and storage
• The new Exchange environment is bloated with years of legacy mail with marginal business value
• Organizations often run with dual messaging systems for an extended period, requiring additional hardware and software
• Loss of data compression during the conversion process results in 1.2 – 1.5 times the volume of messages converted to Exchange
• Not all messages can be converted automatically
• The fidelity of the original Notes messages may be lost
• Attachments, weblinks and encryption may be lost
• Links to Domino applications will be lost. The need to maintain links within messages to current Domino applications often lock organizations into early decisions regarding those applications and can delay or endlessly postpone migration projects

Reducing Infrastructure Stress When Migrating

Dynamic Data Migrator™, AXS-One’s patent-pending technology, is the zero conversion solution for organizations migrating messaging platforms. By providing continuous access to legacy messages without conversion and - dynamic conversion of messages, as required, AXS-One can:

• Significantly reduce migration project timelines and costs
• Minimize infrastructure requirements for the new messaging environment
• Ensure the fidelity of the original message is retained
• Ensure that the entire message (including attachments and links) is accurately converted

To learn more about AXS-One Dynamic Data Migrator click here