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Best Practices for Migratingfrom Lotus Notes to MicrosoftExchange and SharePointA White Paper Written by Technology Strategy Research, LLCand Sponsored by Quest Software
-Best Practices forMigrating fromLotus Notes toMicrosoft Exchangeand SharePointTable of ContentsAbstract. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Best Practices for Migrating from Notes to Microsoft Solutions . . . . . . . . . . 3Gathering Requirements for Migration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Project Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Project Execution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Migrating Mailbox and Calendar Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Migrating Application Content and Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Administering the Target Microsoft Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6About Quest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Abstracttheir strategic investment in Notes. Some executives have apreference for the Microsoft platform because they have usedit successfully in previous jobs and mandate migration to thatplatform, with or without a cost justification. Many executivesrecognize the strategic value in partnering with the emergingmarket leader in communications technology. Other companiesalready have a significant investment in Microsoft software,servers, and infrastructure and want to standardize to theMicrosoft platform. In any case, Notes is often the one partof the IT infrastructure that doesn’t use Microsoft software,making migration from Notes a significant part of IT-relatedstrategy.Many organizations are migrating from IBM Lotus Notes toMicrosoft Exchange and SharePoint because of the rich feature set of the Microsoft solutions, the strategic value of partnering with Microsoft and the high availability of IT stafftrained on Microsoft technology. However, migrations arelong, complex, and expensive projects that must be carefullyplanned and executed. Reliable automated tools from QuestSoftware can play a key role in keeping a migration on-schedule and error-free. And after migration is complete, Quest’smaintenance solutions complement the native Microsofttools to ensure high performance and reliability.The availability of qualified IT staff also plays a role in thedecision to shift from Notes to Microsoft solutions. Becauseof the ubiquity of Microsoft technologies in the enterprise,engineers, administrators and support professionalsexperienced in building and maintaining Microsoft-basedapplications are readily available. Experts in implementingand maintaining Notes are less available, and fewer technicalprofessionals want to make the investment to developthose skills.IntroductionIBM Lotus Notes is one of the most popular enterprisesoftware applications. It was one of the first workgroupapplications—applications that made groups moreproductive by enabling members to easily share documentsand other information online. In the early 1990s, Notes wasalso a popular workgroup e-mail client and server, furtherenhancing communication among workgroup members.Millions of end user licenses of Notes were deployed inenterprises, and for more than a decade, Notes was theengine that drove communication and collaboration in theseorganizations.Finally, migration often provides new capabilities beyondthe existing infrastructure and architecture. For manyorganizations, those capabilities can add to the productivityof the end users, yielding an additional return on the investment in the new platform.One factor contributing to the success of Lotus Notes was thelack of a viable alternative from Microsoft. Microsoft’s growthduring the past two decades is legendary, and todayMicrosoft servers and network infrastructure are commonplace in many organizations. But until recently, Microsoft didnot offer a complete solution that could compete with LotusNotes. Although many organizations migrated their Notesmail to Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft did not provide amature alternative for Notes business applications untilSharePoint 2007 emerged as a fully capable content andapplication portal for organizations of any size. Now organizations that migrated their Notes mail to Exchange years agoare migrating their Notes applications, and others that waitedfor a complete Microsoft solution are migrating both theirNotes mail and applications.Any one of these reasons rarely provides sufficient justification for an organization to abandon its considerable investment in Notes. But considered together, these reasons oftenprovide a justification for migration. Migrating from Notes toMicrosoft solutions is not a project for the faint of heart: for anorganization with thousands of users and applications,migrating could cost into the six figures for licenses, systems,and personnel.Organizations can make back the bulk of their investmentfrom a technology migration by laying a foundation for futuregrowth and opportunity. In the case of a migration fromNotes to corresponding Microsoft technologies, organizationsincrease their return on investment by leveraging existingMicrosoft solutions as well as more fully utilizing Microsoftproducts with complementary features.As various types of communications and media converge,Microsoft is emerging as the vendor with the applications andtools to bring communication together into an integratedwhole. There is less distinction between e-mail, content, andproductivity applications, and an increasing trend towardbringing these disparate forms of content into a singlelocation. Microsoft’s focus on workgroups and productivityhas led it to develop a collection of applications that make itpossible to work across multiple media with relative ease.Now that a full migration from Notes to the Microsoftplatform is possible, many executives today are rethinkingBest Practices for Migrating fromNotes to Microsoft SolutionsDespite the plug-and-play nature of many Microsofttechnologies, migrating from Notes to equivalent Microsofttechnologies requires careful planning and execution.The necessary steps include the following:3
1.2.3.4.5.6.7.and the estimated time required for their completion. Itshould highlight any dependencies between tasks or onexternal events, the resources required, and a timeline.Gathering requirementsProject planningImplementing a pilot projectProject executionTestingGoing livePost-migration administration of the targetMicrosoft environmentIT must also select the Microsoft products that provide thefeatures specified in the requirements. Exchange Server andOutlook are almost always necessary to provide e-mailfunctionality, and in most cases, end users already haveOutlook as a part of a Microsoft Office installation.The Exchange and Outlook combination also provides basiccollaboration features. Many enterprises use shared folders inOutlook to make documents available for workgroups andprojects. However, the usefulness of these shared folders islimited. Although they are organized in a tree structure, theycan be difficult to navigate, making bulk document storageimpractical.Let’s examine some of these steps in further detail.Gathering Requirements for MigrationThe first step in migrating from Notes to Microsoft is todetermine the user requirements for the new environment.Understanding these requirements enables an organizationto determine if the current messaging and collaborationinfrastructure is truly serving its needs. If not, additionalfunctionality can be built into the requirements for thenew platform.The natural alternative is Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.SharePoint provides a mature portal environment that canintegrate content and applications in a single view.SharePoint also provides features for content management,enterprise search, collaboration, and workflow.These requirements direct the efforts of the migration teamby specifying the work to be done and the priorities ofindividual work items. Organizations should prioritize whichNotes features are mission-critical; these should be migratedfirst. Other features can follow later in the process. E-mail isalways a migration priority, but many businesses also rely oncritical applications built in Notes, such as human resourcessystems, financial applications, and document repositories,that may also need to be migrated early in the process. Enduser involvement is critical in making those determinations.Most enterprises find that they need many of the features ofboth Exchange and SharePoint Server. Once this determinationis made, IT must size the servers, select backup systems andsoftware, and analyze maintenance requirements for the levelof users and installations.Finally, the IT staff charged with the migration must ensurethat their skill sets are up to the challenge of the migrationand to administering the Microsoft environment afterthe migration. The importance of this step cannot be underestimated. The IT staff likely has significant experience inNotes administration and application development, and mustensure that it possesses the corresponding skills in the targetMicrosoft technologies.The requirements also provide important checkpoints todetermine if the migration is proceeding according to plan.This is critical in a project that can last well over a year. Andrequirements enable testers to determine whether thecompleted project was successful—that is, whether it fulfillsuser needs.The next step is to conduct a pilot project. Take a smallsample of mailboxes, calendars, content, and applicationsfrom Notes, and test your knowledge and processes bymigrating them to Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint. Thisenables the IT staff to iron out any issues or inconsistencies inthe process. In addition, a pilot project can give the migrationteam and management confidence that the migration can beperformed successfully.Ideally, this opening phase of the migration process engagesall of the stakeholders: the IT migration and administrationteam, application developers where required, business unitrepresentatives, and end users. Business analysts are in thebest position to work with all these groups to identify andflesh out user requirements. Organizations that do not havebusiness analysts on staff may need to turn to outsideconsultants for the appropriate level of skill and objectivity.Project ExecutionProject PlanningExecution of the migration project involves two parts: mailservices and portal/collaboration services. Each part requiresits own planning and migration process. Mail services includee-mail and attachments, personal address books and contactOnce requirements have been defined and approved, IT mustassemble a project plan that defines the tasks required tofulfill the requirements. It should include detailed lists of tasks4
lists, personal and group calendars and to-do lists. Portal/collaboration services include content, applications, andpresentation. The specific items to be migrated should bespelled out in the requirements.migration is likely to have a small number of inconsistenciesor special cases; ideally, the migration tool will report whichcomponents and data have been successfully migrated, anyerrors and the overall status and health of the project. Thisreporting enables IT to quickly identify problems andexceptions and deal with them early, rather than wait untilthey are discovered in testing or production.Historically, organizations chose to migrate one type of service(such as e-mail) and then migrate the other (portal/collaboration services)—and that is still a common strategy. However, itis possible to migrate both simultaneously with a commercialtool set that integrates Notes mail and applications as theyare migrated to Exchange and SharePoint. In this case,organizations often conduct a proof of concept to confirm thattheir applications can be migrated to SharePoint before theycommit to a complete Notes to Microsoft transition.Migrating Application Content and DesignIn most cases, migrating Notes content to MicrosoftSharePoint lists, document libraries, and InfoPath formlibraries is relatively straightforward. One important goal is toretain the structure of the content and the relationshipsbetween content items on the target SharePoint platform. It isalso important to be able to identify and move all contentcomponents, including all Notes data, rich text, images, fileattachments, OLE objects, document links, and accesscontrol lists.If you opt to migrate mail first and applications second, agood approach would be structured something like this: Establish coexistence between both environments.Migrate Notes mailboxes and calendars to Exchange.Migrate Notes application content to SharePoint.Recompose Notes applications in SharePoint.Migrating Notes applications, on the other hand, is often achallenge, especially if some applications were developedspecifically for the Notes platform. It can also be difficult toidentify all application components and data in use in theorganization.Migrating Mailbox and Calendar DataProject managers can choose one of two approaches toexecute the mail and calendar migration. The first is batchmigration: all components are migrated in bulk, in a singletransaction. The second is per desktop: each individualmailbox and application is migrated separately, in serial. Batchmigration can generally be accomplished more quickly, butper desktop gives you greater control over the migrationprocess.The first step in application migration is to identify Notesdatabases across all servers in all locations, and to classifyapplications according to technical and business characteristics.IT should then analyze application usage, data complexity,design complexity, and deviations from standard designtemplates. The goal is to identify active application content inorder to determine what needs to be migrated and the levelof effort needed to migrate each application. It is particularlyimportant to recognize cases where many applications sharethe same design so they can be consolidated or at leastmigrated with a common set of routines.With either approach, automation is a key to a fast andsuccessful migration. Manually copying individual mailboxcontents and settings from Notes to Exchange is timeconsuming and error-prone. It is possible to script the stepsof the migration, but the result could be complex andinaccurate, causing poor performance.All application data can then be migrated directly intocorresponding SharePoint locations. A quality automationtool, such as Quest Notes Migrator for SharePoint, isinvaluable here. The tool should enable IT to manage theentire project throughout the process. Frequently it will benecessary to generate new SharePoint sites and subsites tomirror the structure that previously existed in Notes. Anyaccess control rules in place in the Notes applications must bemapped to permissions in the corresponding SharePoint sites,lists, libraries, and even individual data documents.Some Notes applications will map to standard SharePointtemplates such as Discussions, Calendars, and DocumentLibraries. Others will require customized schema toaccommodate additional data columns or content types thatare not standard in SharePoint. The migration tool shouldsupport the development of custom schema based onThe best choice is a commercial tool that migrates all requiredfiles and information quickly and accurately, such as QuestNotes Migrator for Exchange. The tool you choose shouldconvert e-mail, calendars, tasks, and personal address booksand store them in new e-mail boxes on the Exchange server. Itshould also assist in preparation for the migration by classifying the components to be migrated, prioritizing them, andfiltering out unneeded data. The tool should provide realistictime estimates for the migration and progress reports.The safest way to begin is with a pilot project, as describedearlier. Once the migration team has worked out any errors inthe pilot, the actual migration can begin. Any automated5
Administering the Target MicrosoftEnvironmentpatterns detected in the source applications and provisioningthem in SharePoint. In cases where IT has developed orpurchased customized SharePoint application templates, thetool should support mapping data from Notes to the customSharePoint schemas and transform the data as needed.Work doesn’t stop after a successful migration. Onceenterprise e-mail, calendars, collaboration, content andapplications reside entirely on Microsoft applications, thoseapplications and the underlying infrastructure have to beadministered for long-term high performance and reliability.Often, the complex Notes applications in an organization arethe most visible and “mission- critical” applications to bemigrated. In addition, many organizations want to improve orconsolidate applications as they move them from Notes toSharePoint. This creates a substantial application developmentrequirement that can stall the move. Many organizations willnot start their migration until they have a solution forrecomposing these high value/high visibility applications.IT staff who have been working with IBM Lotus Notes foryears may find administrative tasks such as archiving, repair,user management, and growth more difficult and timeconsuming in Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint. But evenan IT staff experienced with Microsoft solutions should planon employing tools to support an automated managementand control strategy with these products.These recomposed/improved applications can be developedwith Visual Studio, SharePoint Designer, and InfoPath. However,the worldwide shortage of qualified SharePoint developersmakes investing in a rapid application development tool suchas Quest Development Studio for SharePoint a good strategy,helping to significantly reduce the cost and timetable ofdevelopment. This toolkit of WebParts enables IT to rebuildNotes applications in SharePoint without custom coding. Thiscan minimize the time needed to get the applications runningand productive on the new platform and allows an IT staff toreserve valuable coding resources for other importantprojects. Additionally, it simplifies the retraining of Notesdevelopers. Transitioning from Notes to .Net developmentrequires a steep learning curve. Training a Notes developer toconfigure WebParts will enable that developer to become aproductive SharePoint developer in a much shorter time.Many organizations already have automated solutions inplace to manage their existing Microsoft infrastructure, suchas Active Directory and SQL Server. These solutions can beeasily supplemented with complementary products thatwork specifically with Exchange and SharePoint. In particular,Quest Software’s Archive Manager, MessageStats, RecoveryManager for Exchange, Recovery Manager for SharePoint,Site Administrator for SharePoint, and Spotlight on Messagingcan assist IT administrators in maintaining a reliable andhigh-performance environment.ConclusionMoving an organization’s e-mail, portal content, andapplications from IBM Lotus Notes to Microsoft Exchange andSharePoint can make business and economic sense because itprovides the organization with more functionality, cohesiveness, and room to expand. But migration requires carefulplanning, execution, testing and oversight. Running amigration manually or with homegrown scripts can result inan inconsistent application of the process, lengthy delays andrework, and less than optimal use of the target platform.The automation process and tools should also allow the Notesand Microsoft environments to coexist for an extended periodto keep them working together smoothly during extendedmigration processes. For example, Notes mail messages orother application documents often link to other Notesapplication documents. These links need to continue to functionthroughout the migration, whether you migrate mail orapplications first. Users who have been moved to SharePointmust continue to have access to Notes applications. Users stillusing the Notes client must be able to copy Notes documentsfrom their Inbox to a SharePoint document library. Everyorganization has different needs; it is important that broad setof tools is available to handle these types of challenges.Visibility and management are key aspects of the migrationand testing. Without data, it isn’t possible to determine howmuch work remains to be done and whether the targetenvironment is operating as it should. An automation platformshould enable the IT team to collect, analyze, and report ondata that reflects the state of the project. It should enablemanagement to determine project status, adjust milestones,and identify and correct problems early, before they are facedwith an unpleasant surprise.A better alternative is to employ proven migration solutionslike Quest Notes Migrator for Exchange and Notes Migratorfor SharePoint. These tools assess the effort needed tocomplete the project, enable effective project management,and automate critical but repetitive tasks to ensure a successful migration. Quest also offers a full suite of tools to help youmanage your new Exchange and SharePoint environments.The end result is a reliable and scalable Microsoft solutionthat enables your organization to take full advantage of itsinvestment.About QuestQuest Software, Inc., a leading enterprise systems managementvendor, delivers innovative products that help organizations6
get more performance and productivityfrom their applications, databases,Windows infrastructure and virtualenvironments. Through a deep expertise in IT operations and a continued focuson what works best, Quest helps morethan 90,000 customers worldwide meethigher expectations for enterprise IT.Quest provides customers with clientmanagement as well as server anddesktop virtualization solutionsthrough its subsidiaries, ScriptLogicand Vizioncore. Quest Software can befound in offices around the globe andat www.quest.com.7
migrating them to Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint. This enables the IT staff to iron out any issues or inconsistencies in the process. In addition, a pilot project can give the migration team and management confidence that the migration can be performed successfully. Project Execution Execution of the migration project involves two parts: mail
