In a world of rapidly developing technologies, messaging and collaborative services are excessively important for organizations. Along with developments, comes change. It’s often prudent for any company to move large databases from older systems to new systems in order to gain maximum benefits from available resources. This process is known as data migration and such migrations can be the case of email service migration. One common example of email client migration is moving from Lotus Notes email files to Microsoft Outlook. However, converting Notes to Outlook manually is a strenuous process; thus, thoughtfully Microsoft has provided its users with the Exchange Server Migration Wizard.
The benefits of Migration Wizard
Migration Wizard is adequate from several migration processes. When it comes to converting Notes Storage Format (NSF) files for Lotus Notes to Personal Storage Table (PST) files for Outlook, there are some processes that Exchange Server Migration Wizard can perform successfully. These are:
- Easily migrates embedded document links: Document links embedded in messages can be converted to either RTF attachments, URL shortcuts or OLE attachments for Outlook.
- Migrate group scheduling: With this tool, you can convert the calendar and to-do list functions of Lotus Notes to Outlook. However, before performing this task, either accept or decline any pending meeting requests.
- Migrating emails: These are among the easier files to be moved with the migration wizard. It’s not just regular old emails; emails with attachments can also be migrated with ease. However, any message still lying in the Outbox — i.e., those which have been scheduled to be send at a later date — will show up in Sent Items once they’ve appeared in Outlook.
Limitations
Despite of these successful migration processes there are few cases that the Microsoft Exchange Server Migration Wizard may not be able to handle.
For example, Migration Wizard is not able to handle encrypted messages or custom applications. Encrypted messages are lost after the migration process completes, as the wizard is incapable of accessing the private key codes that are used to both encrypt and decrypt the files. You can though try to convert custom applications with the Exchange Application Converter, but there are many variables to consider and you may not succeed every time. Again, working with Migration Wizard needs expertise in both environments. Also, you cannot directly migrate from Notes to Exchange 2010 as the Wizard has not been updated for this purpose.
Use of migration software
The Microsoft Exchange Server Migration Wizard proves beneficial when are about to migrate some very basic files. However, organizations have huge data and hundreds of mailboxes with more complex needs than this, with a range of custom applications and encrypted messages to migrate. Data migration is known to be a troubling task and raises issues midway, leading to data loss. Therefore, it’s a lot better to use premium data migration software to ensure everything runs smoothly.
Kernel for Notes to Outlook is a premium email migration software program. It is an all inclusive tool to help at each step of migration from planning and analysis through migration and ongoing management. It converts any number of .NSF file(s) to .PST/Exchange. It also lets you to directly convert Domino user mailboxes to new account in Exchange Server or .PST. It supports Unicode Character Conversion and preserves original formatting. A free trial version is available to let you experience the features of this tool which converts one NSF file and saves the first 10 items of every folder existing in the NSF file.