If you’re using an older version of Novell® GroupWise® for messaging and collaboration, you’re probably wondering if you should upgrade to the latest version or just transition everything to Office 365.
Office 365 certainly has a lot to offer, but the task of making that transition can be daunting. With careful planning, however, it’s a manageable process and your organization will be on its way to enjoying the benefits of Office 365 in no time. Here are eight steps to help plan for a cost-effective and low impact transition from GroupWise to Office 365.
- Gather all the information you can about your current environment. You’ll need details on GroupWise mailboxes, archives, shared folders and proxies. Some migration solutions offer assessment tools to automate this process.
- Run test migrations and analyze your GroupWise mailbox data to determine its impact on project timing. Plan ahead to accommodate organizational needs and minimize impact. The relative size of each mailbox is also important when defining and scheduling migration groups to ensure that migrations finish within the allotted windows.
- Locate and migrate valuable content stored in GroupWise archives. Because the archive location is controlled by the GroupWise client, the specific location often varies by user. Don’t let that intimidate you — you risk losing valuable information stored in your GroupWise archives and some migration solutions can automatically find the archives and provide a report with location and size information for each user.
- Gather information from shared folders and address books to help plan and audit your data. Keep track of data owners, file names, type of shared content and rights info. There are also solutions available to streamline this process.
- Gather your GroupWise proxy data. Preserving these rights and relationships will help ensure a seamless transition to the new platform. This data can help determine optimal migration groupings and ensure that users with delegate relationships have continual access throughout the migration process. Proper migration solutions assist in gathering this information in advance and automatically convert proxy rights to equivalent rights in Office 365.
- Consider coexistence. To keep the organization operating smoothly during the migration, you may want to consider coexistence options. Coexistence enables a seamless transition and gives you more flexibility in terms of scheduling and resource migration. If you do need a coexistence solution, you should document your coexistence plan as an addendum to the migration plan to ensure functional compatibility and technical coordination between both elements of the project.
- Consider all aspects of Office 365 that might affect your migration. Here are a couple of the more common details to look at:
- Architecture. Decisions should be made based on the ongoing needs of your organization rather than anything related to the transition. Note that decisions about the use of Active Directory®, Exchange, and Microsoft’s native synchronization and federation solutions will impact migration planning
- Throttling. Several types of throttling can impact migration, but specific elements of the MAPI and PowerShell throttling in Wave 15 are the biggest considerations when planning a migration from GroupWise to Office 365.
- Choose a migration solution package that fits with your project and automates the critical conversion details to provide a smooth transition. Make sure any third-party solutions you use to help with your migration and coexistence project are specifically designed for Office 365. You will also want to consider the advantages and disadvantages of on-premises versus hosted migration solutions. There are many options and considerations that go into planning a migration to Office 365. Always make choices that provide the most value while simplifying the transition and minimizing the impact on your organization. And be sure to build flexibility into the new system so that it can evolve as your business grows
There are many options and considerations that go into planning a migration to Office 365. Always make choices that provide the most value while simplifying the transition and minimizing the impact on your organization. And be sure to build flexibility into the new system so that it can evolve as your business grows.
Check out this white paper to find out how Dell GroupWise Migrator for Exchange can help ensure a successful migration.
