Siemens has embarked on a massive plan to migrate
350,000 users in more than 100 diverse business units around the
world from Microsoft Exchange Version 5.5 to Exchange
2003.
The migration, which is not due to be complete until late 2005,
prompted the Munich-based company to turn to Quest Software for
help. Siemens is a conglomerate whose divisions produce and sell
lighting products, railroad cars, sensors and power generation
systems.
The Siemens Exchange network was built, division by division,
with little worry about centralised administration, and was set up
using more than 150 Exchange "organisations" for the business units
when it was last updated in the late 1990s.
Even worse, by having those separate organisations, Siemens
could not take full advantage of its recent investment in
Microsoft's Active Directory. That software allows users to share
calendars, address books and public folders across the entire
corporate network - as long as the users are all located within the
same organisation.
Dieter Reinersmann, a Siemens IT administrator responsible for
the company's Exchange deployment, said Siemens managers eventually
turned to Aelita Exchange Migration Wizard from Quest to help solve
the most serious issues with the Exchange migration.
The Exchange Migration Wizard allows Siemens IT workers to
maintain their old Exchange 5.5 records and mailboxes even as they
create the new system under Exchange 2003.
Users can continue to get their mail and use their address
books, even as the transfers are being done. No systems shutdown is
needed because it allows the new Exchange server to be deployed
without any disruption to Siemens' employees, "they don't even
really know what's happening", Reinersmann said.
"There's no way we could develop this on our own," he said. "You
have to have an in-depth knowledge of Exchange."
Quest acquired the migration wizard in March when it bought
Aelita Software for about $115m (£64m). The Aelita name is being
dropped by the end of this year, when the product will be known as
Exchange Migration Wizard.
Siemens is using the migration wizard to convert about 200,000
of its Exchange users in its largest business units, while using
some of the native Exchange migration tools in smaller business
units, he said.
The native Exchange migration tools did not have the
capabilities needed across the entire company because they could
not handle the disparate Exchange organisations already in place,
he said.
As part of the migration, Siemens expects to save money by
reducing the number of Exchange organisations and paring its
existing 2,500 Exchange servers to about 700. "That's a big cost
savings," Reinersmann said.
Siemens spent a year testing the Exchange Migration Wizard, then
began using it for the migration about six months ago. The price of
the migration was not disclosed, but Reinersmann said Exchange
Migration Wizard has already paid for itself.
He also offered advice for other companies contemplating a
similar move. "If you're planning something like this, be prepared
to take some time" to get it worked out, he said. "If it is
prepared carefully, the tool works well."
Pricing for the wizard begins at $15 per mailbox, with discounts
for volume purchases.
Todd R Weiss writes for Computerworld