Exchange 5.5 Migration Deadline? C2C Says Preparation and Housekeeping Can Cut Out Headaches.

25th October 2005

Microsoft set the deadline by stopping support of Exchange 5.5 on December 31, but the severity of the migration headache can be controlled by IT planning and preparation. That’s the advice from C2C’s Exchange specialists and a free white paper, written by C2C, provides some preparation tips for a smooth migration.

E-mail archiving products are best known for compliance reasons, but CEO Dave Hunt notes that they can also help with systems housekeeping. “Capacity-based archiving can help smooth a migration by shifting non-critical email out of the system so the migrating load is smaller,” he says. “Oversized mailboxes are always a problem with any migration strategy, and archiving can provide technical business/benefits with real ROI.”

Migrating your Exchange servers can be a daunting task, but it is also an opportunity for systems housekeeping to reduce risk and clean up previous administrative oversights or errors from being carried forward. Some tips include:

• Dealing with Zombie Users. Migrations are renowned for highlighting anomalies in mailbox permissions and user profiles that, if carried forward to the new system, could increase risk of email security events. 'Zombie accounts' are a common security risk that you do not want to carry to the new Exchange system.
  
• Reducing Migration Load. Strategic email archiving enhances the migration process and experience. If legacy and infrequently accessed email data is already extracted from the 5.5 servers, you will reduce the time to migrate from one platform to the next.
  
• Data Reduction. Compressing attachments can reduce the amount of space needed for storage, and it can also improve the performance of a messaging system. Before migrating the Exchange Information Store, automated compression of email attachments in Exchange Servers might be in order.
  

“Running unsupported Exchange 5.5 servers is a risk I’d advise any administrator to avoid at all costs,” says Heath Clarke, C2C’s chief consultant. “The exposure to a mail system disaster is real, and lack of support means no room for recovery in many cases. Time’s running out for 5.5 and we want to help people migrate as quickly and easily as we can.”

To download the free “Exchange 5.5 Migration Tips,” please click here.

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