Migrating Mail from Symantec Enterprise Vault Back Into Exchange

Scenario

An Exchange upgrade from Exchange 2003 Standard to Exchange 2010 Standard, also needing to account for Symantec Enterprise Vault archives connected to the Exchange 2003 server, with the intention to migrate the Enterprise Vault archives to Exchange 2010 Archive mailboxes. The version of Symantec Enterprise Vault was 7.5 and the support had lapsed so upgrading this was not an option – version 9.0 or above would have been required for Exchange 2010 (the latest version of EV is 10.0.2.)

Important Note: The Exchange 2010 Archive mailbox feature requires Exchange 2010 Enterprise CALs!

Note: An easier solution might have been to upgrade the Symantec Enterprise Vault, this would not require the Exchange 2010 Enterprise CALs, and make the migration a lot quicker (no need to re-inject the archives back into Exchange 2003, then have to migrate a potentially much larger mailbox to Exchange 2010, and finally – with Exchange 2010 Enterprise CALs – configure the archive mailboxes at the other end.)

Migration Steps

1) Pause the following tasks from the Enterprise Vault Administration Console (VAC), and Console Root > Enterprise Vault > Directory on SERVER > EVSITE > Enterprise Vault Servers > EVSERVER:

Exchange Mailbox Archiving Task
Exchange Provisioning Task

Image: EV 7.5 > Tasks

2) Right-click the Archives folder and choose Export…

Image: EV 7.5 > Archives > Export…

3) Follow through the Export Archive wizard, choosing to ‘Export Archives to their original mailboxes

Image: Export Archives to their original mailboxes

Note: For archives that no longer link to an active mailbox, if these archives are still required then export to PST instead.

4) When the Export to the original mailboxes is complete, simply right-click exported archive(s) in the Archives > Exchange Mailbox folder and choose delete

5) When all the archives have been re-injected back into Exchange 2003 we can decommission the Symantec Enterprise Vault server (can first delete the Exchange 2003 server from the VAC - Targets > Exchange > DOMAIN > Exchange Server)

6) The migration from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010 is a straightforward Move Request from the Exchange 2010 EMC or EMS.

7) Final step would be configuring the Archive Mailboxes in Exchange 2010.

Note: Another option would be to just Export to PST all the mailboxes then re-import the PST, but re-injecting into Exchange is potentially quicker (only the re-inject operation and the Archive Policy will sort out the rest) and also avoids any compatibility issues with re-importing Exchange 2003 PSTs into Exchange 2010.

Things to Consider

1) Pausing the Mailbox Archiving Task will potentially cause the Exchange 2003 mailbox database to start growing, be sure there is plenty of free space, and if you have Exchange 2003 Standard, watch out for the 75GB limit in Exchange 2003 SP2 (after applying the registry fix to up the limit from the default of 18GB with SP2.)

2) Re-injecting archives back into Exchange will potentially cause the Exchange 2003 mailbox database to start growing. Also, it will generate a lot of transaction logs.

3) Regards handling transaction logs, the preferred method is to take regular backups to keep the transaction logs down, if this is not an option then circular logging will need to be enabled on the Mailbox Store.

4) Migrating mailboxes to Exchange 2010 will generate transaction logs on the Exchange 2010 server – again recommend regular backups to keep the logs down. It is important to remember that when you move a mailbox from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010, the white space is only made available in the Exchange 2003 server database after the database maintenance task runs.

5) If the Exchange 2003 Standard 75GB database limit is too much of a problem, it can be upgraded to Exchange 2003 Enterprise!


“An (Exchange 2003 Standard) mailbox database will dismount every morning at 5:00 when the 75GB limit has been reached. As a temporary fix, before the migration to a new server, create a scheduled task to run every day at 05:30 that re-mounts the database.”

For a greater than 24 hour window between dismounts:

“… if the following value in the registry is set to one hour behind the current dismount time, it will be almost 48 hours before the next dismount …

To change the time, create a DWORD registry key called "Database Size Check Start Time in Hours From Midnight" in the following location:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeIS\\Private-GUID

Then, specify a decimal value of 1-24 in the value datafield, where 1 is equal to 01:00 or 1 AM and so on. A dismount and remount of the database is required for this change to be active.”

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