Infocus Performs Successful Exchange Server Mailbox Migration

• Mar 04 , 2019
• Print
• Download

When Infocus Wealth Management acquired another business, a challenge was to merge the mailboxes from the acquired entity's Exchange Server 2016 into its existing Exchange Sever 2010. However, this posed technical difficulties due to the differing versions of the mailbox servers. Also, the IT-support team of the acquired business did not want to facilitate the mailbox migration process. With two Exchange servers on different versions and limited technical support, Infocus team knew that they had to act quickly and judiciously to close in the acquisition process on time…

Infocus Wealth Management is a leading financial advisory firm in Australia. The organization relies on innovative technologies and software to enhance service quality, agility, and affordability.

Infocus was in the process of acquiring another business, and Exchange mailbox merger —including emails and messaging data — was part of the deal. The mergers and acquisitions (M&A) process was transitioning smoothly until it hit the roadblock with mailbox migration.

Business Challenge

The customer faced 3 key challenges:

• Technical difficulties with regard to migrating the mailboxes from Exchange Server 2016 to 2010
• No technical support and cooperation from the acquired business to actualize the necessary actions for mailbox migration
• Migration urgency to close the M&A process as planned, without hampering the routine email communication

Infocus needed to migrate the acquired business' Exchange mailbox data to its own existing Exchange server, but due to disparities in the Exchange Server versions — Infocus was using Exchange 2010 whereas the acquired business had Exchange 2016 — this wasn't possible; because, Microsoft doesn't support mailbox migration from a higher Exchange version to a lower version.

Infocus needed to do quick mailbox migration to complete the acquisition process, as per the plan. However, it was difficult to upgrade their native Exchange Server 2010 to the 2016 version to enable allow mailbox migration. This is because upgrading and migrating Exchange needs advance planning and scheduled downtime, while their migration need was urgent.

Also, it was important to maintain seamless email communication, while the migration process happened. Besides this technical limitation, the IT team of the acquired business was also not willing to cooperate in the mailbox migration process.

Solution

Paul Wibberley – the Infrastructure Manager at Infocus, who was leading the infrastructure merger process – assessed the situation and decided to take the software route for addressing this mailbox migration problem. His primary concern was to achieve speedy execution without any scope for errors or gaps (missing folder, incomplete migration etc.), and to get a solution that was easier to execute and comprehensive.

So, the Infocus team decided to use Stellar Toolkit for Exchange for this large-scale mailbox migration project. The tool allowed them to convert and extract all the mailboxes on Exchange Server 2016 into PST files. These PSTs were then seamlessly imported in the respective mailboxes (newly created) on the native Exchange Server 2010.

This software tool-based mailbox conversion and import process helped Infocus circumvent the innate challenges associated with the default Exchange Server migration process.

Execution Approach

The software-based mailbox migration process involved the following steps:

• Dismounted the exchange database (EDB) on Exchange Server 2016
• Purchased and downloaded Stellar Exchange Toolkit
• Opened the Exchange 2016 EDB files on Exchange Toolkit
• Converted all the mailbox on the EDB files into importable PSTs
• The deleted mailboxes in these EDB files were also converted into PSTs.
• Created new mailboxes on the current Exchange Server 2010
• Imported all the PST files into respective mailboxes on Exchange Server 2010

Results

Infocus successfully migrated all the mailboxes from Exchange Server 2016 to 2010, with ease and minimal technical expertise. Also, the migration process was completed much faster as compared to the time that a manual process would have taken. Exchange Toolkit also restored the deleted mailboxes on Exchange 2016, which were also migrated successfully.

Key Benefits

Faster migration: The entire mailbox data was moved from Exchange Server 2016 to 2010 in a short time, quick enough to keep the M&A plan on track

Easy functionality: The Infocus team managed to do successful mailbox migration, without any assistance from the acquired business' team. The software facilitated the entire process in a few clicks.

Guaranteed migration: As reported, the mailbox migration process was achieved with 100% effectiveness, meaning not a single mailbox (not even deleted mailboxes) was left behind.

• Mar 04 , 2019
• Print
• Download

STELLAR TOOLKIT FOR EXCHANGE

Restore Exchange Database

A 5-in-1 suite of specialized tools, highly recommended by MVPs and IT administrators, to repair corrupt EDB, extract mailboxes from backup, and convert Exchange database (EDB) mailboxes into PST file format.

Read More