Considerations For Deploying Live@edu–Part 2: Migration
Moving to the cloud this summer?
Getting signed up for Live@edu is only a small part of the project that is “deploying Live@edu”. If you’re running an existing mail service for your users the chances are you’re going to want to transfer as much existing mail and other data as possible. Planning your migration is vital for a smooth transition to Live@edu, so what are your options?
If you’re running Microsoft Exchange Server, there’s great news!
Earlier this year we rolled out a service refresh that made it possible to make use of the Exchange mailbox migration tool to migrate your users to Live@edu. If you’re running Exchange 2003, or 2007, you can make use of this tool right now!
The migration service migrates e-mail messages, contacts, and calendar items from your local Exchange mailboxes to the corresponding Live@edu mailboxes.
If you’re not running Exchange Server, there’s still great news!
An alternative to the Exchange Mailbox Migration Tool is the IMAP migration tool that can pull in mail from an IMAP server. Supported IMAP servers include:
- Courier-IMAP
- Cyrus
- Dovecot
- UW-IMAP
- Exchange 2000 Server or previous versions
- Exchange 2003
- Exchange 2007
- Exchange 2010
As well as the free tools offered by Microsoft there are a number of companies out there, including Quest Software and Migration Wiz, who offer migration tools to make your transition to the cloud as smooth as possible, although there may be costs associated with those services.
Remember, migration can take time and the more users and data you have the longer you’re going to need to build into your project plan. There are some things to watch out for, too; for example, if your existing users have mail in their mailboxes with attachments that are larger than 25MB you need to consider carefully how that will impact your migration.
Of course, if you run into any trouble then there are several places you can go to get some help:
Self-Service:
Support Services:
- Online service request
- 24x7 Telephone support, available through your Service Management Portal
Have you already migrated to Live@edu? We’d love to know more about your story in the comments!