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Migrate from Merak Mail server to Exchange 2003

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Migrate from Merak Mail server to Exchange 2003 - 5.Jan.2007 10:19:13 PM

nmavra

Posts: 3
Joined: 5.Jan.2007
Status: offline

Hello all, this is my first post here!

Here's my case: I work for an internet & mobile service company and we currently host around 120 customers' websites, each of course with its own email accounts.

We are using Merak Mail server, which is working fine up to now. Our company has 7 employees and even though we have 5 Windows 2003 (not SBS) servers, none of them is a Domain Controller, because in our local network we work in a workgroup.

I understand that we need to have a domain controller and Active Directory in order for Exchange 2003 to work, is that right? I have experience (from my previous job) on maintaining Exchange 2003, but it was only for a local network of 200 people, under one domain. Do I need an Active Directory environment in order to offer email services to all these different customers?

The most important issue is how do I migrate from Merak to Exchange? I am talking about at least 900 mailboxes, so I would be very happy if I could somehow import emails automatically. I would also be very happy if this could be done with the minimum change for my customers, i.e. their account settings in their email application should ideally remain unchanged (we use POP3 now).

I would be grateful if someone could give me some hints in order to get started. This is not something that my company expects to happen overnight, however its a growing need and I would like to get started in a test environment before proceeding..

Post #: 1

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RE: Migrate from Merak Mail server to Exchange 2003 - 6.Jan.2007 3:40:43 AM

tiallen

Posts: 262
Joined: 26.Jan.2006
From: Minneapolis MN
Status: offline

Hello nmavra! and welcome to the forums!!

Exchange WILL require an active directory environment, even if you have another LDAP/Radius/Whatever holding all concievable user information, much of the exchange configuration lives in active directory, as such you simply cannot install exchange without AD.

There are many third party migration tools availble, but exchange comes with a migration wizard that supports migrating off of IMAP enabled servers.

I have a lengthly thread here:
http://forums.msexchange.org/m_1800405706/mpage_1/key_/tm.htm#1800405706
That you should read... It covers qmail->exchange using the migration wizard

-Tim

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(in reply to nmavra)

Post #: 2

RE: Migrate from Merak Mail server to Exchange 2003 - 8.Jan.2007 4:44:50 PM

nmavra

Posts: 3
Joined: 5.Jan.2007
Status: offline

Thank you very much for your reply!
I will certainly have a look at the thread you posted and might come back to this thread when I start the migration! :)

(in reply to tiallen)

Post #: 3

RE: Migrate from Merak Mail server to Exchange 2003 - 2.Feb.2007 4:22:44 AM

antlar

Posts: 2
Joined: 2.Feb.2007
Status: offline

Hi nmavra!

We're just about to migrate from Merak to Exchange. Have you already performed your migration?

It would be perfect to learn about your experience when migrating. How did you do it? Any data loss? Any difficulties? Time consumption?

(in reply to nmavra)

Post #: 4

RE: Migrate from Merak Mail server to Exchange 2003 - 4.Feb.2007 3:42:42 PM

nmavra

Posts: 3
Joined: 5.Jan.2007
Status: offline

Hello, sorry for the late reply! Well eventually the company decided its not ready to perform the migration yet. We are thinking of eventually stopping the hosting service (too much hassle and its not the company's primary product) so we're still deciding. To be honest, I don't think they'll want to proceed, mainly because of the cost involved.

I do however want to do that migration at some point, but I will probably do that in a test environment. I currently work 12h a day so its not a viable option at the moment.

So please, if you do proceed, let me know how you did it, and how it went, what problems you encountered, etc. Thanks and good luck!!!!

(in reply to antlar)

Post #: 5

RE: Migrate from Merak Mail server to Exchange 2003 - 13.Feb.2008 2:39:50 AM

antlar

Posts: 2
Joined: 2.Feb.2007
Status: offline

Hi again!

This is a really late followup on this topic. We have now successfully changed platform for all our uses, however we didn't do a migration with all the data.

Since we only had about 100 users and each user had a outlook .PST file of their inbox we could just recreate all mailboxes on the new Exchange 2007 Server. After recreation we asked them drag and drop anything they wanted into their new mailbox from the pst file.

We didn't encounter any problems during this. We already had all accounts in the AD so bascially we only needed to connect a mailbox to it.

The BIG problem we had was to get the Macintoshes to work with Exchange, although that was another issue caused by wrong configuration from our side.

(in reply to nmavra)

Post #: 6

RE: Migrate from Merak Mail server to Exchange 2003 - 22.May2008 5:42:07 AM