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Conference chefs::ms-exchange

Title:	Microsoft Exchange Server
Notice:
Moderator:	FLASK2::SYSTEM

Created:	Fri Feb 17 1995
Last Modified:	Thu Jun 05 1997
Last Successful Update:	Thu Jun 05 1997
Number of topics:	1099
Total number of notes:	5174

1069.0. "1500 Migrated Users Per Week? Tool?" by NQOS01::16.81.32.132::ATKINS (atkinss@mail.dec.com) Mon May 19 1997 06:50

In the following article ( http://messaging.vbe.dec.com/majorDEC.htm ) there 
is a section that talks about a tool we have to allow for migration of 1500 
users per week. 

"Within DEC, there are only about 4,000 seats to go, so at the current 
migration rate of 1,000 seats a week, the company will be finished installing 
Exchange in a matter of weeks. It now is designing migration tools that other 
enterprises can use to step that rate up to 1,500 seats a week."

Could somebody address what tool we have uncovered that allows this. In Tony 
Redmond's book he says you push an organization's support capabilities when 
you go beyond 100 users per week (pg 322 ). This would also have some impact 
on the numbers we are telling our customers we can do in a week.  I can 
understand that once the migration teams are in place that given enough 
resources 1000 - 1500 users is possible. 

There is another statement in this article that makes me question the whole 
article. I know that Exchange V5.0 does not remove the 16 gigabyte ceiling. 
Since all of this information came from our Internal Web pages I think we need 
to have some QA on the information before it's posted. I don't know who wrote 
it but if it's true that the 16 Gbyte limit has been removed and we have a 
tool that allows 1500 users per week we need to make it the number one news 
story. 

"The other major bottleneck in regards to scaleability is one that Microsoft 
solved when it removed the 16 gigabyte ceiling on the size of the Exchange 
message store in Version 5.0, which it officially announced last month. Years 
ago, that may have seemed like enough storage space for thousands of users, 
but today's multimedia messaging users tend to eat up disk space at a 
prodigious rate. "

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
1069.1		IOSG::PYE	Graham - ALL-IN-1 Sorcerer's Apprentice	`Mon May 19 1997 13:16`	5
	<<<< "Within DEC, there are only about 4,000 seats to go, I doubt that's remotely true either! I'm sure all of Engineering (at least) amounts to more than that, and a lot of those won't be moving any time soon....
1069.2		MRPTH1::16.121.160.239::slab	labounty@mail.dec.com	`Mon May 19 1997 16:36`	3
	"Migrated" could simply mean "mailbox set up and ready".
1069.3	"If's" and "but's"	FLASK2::SYSTEM	Nigel Bridport @REO	`Mon May 19 1997 17:09`	6
	There are a lot of "if's" concerned with 'migration'. If there is any data to be migrated, then 1500/week is a tough target but one that we currently have to aim for on the BT NGM project for example *8-( Nigel.
1069.4	The tools	tunsrv2-tunnel.imc.das.dec.com::foster	Stan Foster - foster@mail.dec.com	`Tue May 20 1997 06:17`	15
	We use some home-grown tools to aid in creating NT accounts and Exchange mailboxes using bulk loads from the BU's. This in addition to the one-off requests via the Web site gets a mailbox created and an account in the Digital NT domain together with optional Ras and personal storage on an office server. At the same time there is end user training that includes the ALL-IN-1 migration tools (direct-to-1 or ExchangeLink). We opted for user driven migration of legacy mail rather than the Exchange wizards (too slow, too labour intensive and the ALL-IN-1 wiz didnt work that well anyway). The MTS entry also gets switched and the employee is now officially "migrated". GE and Boeing also have similar deployment rates. Once you have the machinery in place, particularly the user training and the tools, it goes quite fast.
1069.5	The method we're using on Lockheed	GOBUCS::COOLEY	Megan and Michelle's Daddy	`Tue May 20 1997 19:41`	30
	On Lockheed Martin I think the goal is something like 2,000 a week. I'm only involved in the directory portion so let me tell how we're doing that: We're using the Digital X.500 directory as the repository for User information. (We currently have 100,000 email users in the directory plus 70,000 non-email). A list of users to be migrated is input into X.500 when they are ready to go. Each user has attributes for Exchange Site, Server, Alias, NT account, etc. Then the X.500 Directory Synchronizer (XDSU) is used to compare Exchange with X.500 and create ADD,MOD,DEL Changes Files which update the exchange directory. This is done using the Exchange ADMIN import function. (We also have a RSHD which runs on the Alpha NT Exchange Site boxes so we can start the exports and imports from the Unix box). And the mailboxes are created in two phases. In the first phase, only the mailbox is created but is hidden from the Address Book. Then when the client is ready, the second phase un-hides the user from the address book when they are ready to receive mail. (An attribute in X.500 is updated to change the phase). We also plan to have all the legacy email addresses in the Exchange Directory as custom recipients. (which are removed as they are migrated). So, all the directory information is updated in X.500 and automically updated in Exchange every night. This took (is taking) ALOT of planning, but I think it's going to be a pretty good solution. Warren
1069.6	I stand corrected.	NQOS01::rdodial_port12.32.81.16.in-addr.arpa::ATKINS	atkinss@mail.dec.com	`Tue May 20 1997 20:13`	10
	Thanks for all the comments. In light of what I read it seems we can do 1000 -1500 users per week. There is some cost in putting in a machine that can move at this rate but I would think that the benefits of doing away with a prolonged coexistance phase would be worth it. XDSU, Digital X.500 and User Training are the two messages that look like you need if you want to have this rate of migration. Thanks, Steve