upgrade question

[mmitchell]

Old version:

Unity 2.4.6.102 on Exchange 5.5 unified

New Version

New Server

Unity 3.1.4 on Exchange 2000unified

The question is this. The customer is migrating to Exchange 2000. They have already moved half of there users to the exchange 2000 and those users are just going to be voicemail users until the upgrade is compelte. the other half did not want to loose the unified capability.

Now upgrade time comes. Is there a easy way of getting this upgrade done while the exchange migration is happeneing. Essentially my plan now is this:

1) Load unity and integrate with exchange 2000 and test

2) Customer completes moving the remaining users to exchange 2000

3) import users from exchange 2000

4) hand input callhandlers, public dlists, and other misc items (0 - out targets for subscribers, etc)

Is there a better way.

I realize there are upgrade procedures from going from 2.x to 3.x but the exchange migration seems to be a sticking point in doing this easily.

If not, is there a way of getting the callhandlers and public dlists over. It would also be great to just get the subscriber data over. Hopefully there is an easy answer to this. Thanks.

[lindborg]

the existing migration procedure should work OK here... you do your back up on the 2.x system, install a new 3.1(4) (any reason not to go with 3.1(5)?) and do the import. All your subscriber and call handler data will come over just fine... it'll bind to existing users in the directory no problem.

I'm unsure why you assume this wont work just because you're migrating to e2K... the import/export tools don't care or know what the back end is and should work just fine regardless.

[mmitchell]

My error I guess. I though that the mail system had to be the same. So I can export the 2.4 database using the tool and import into 3.x no problem at all? This has to be done on a clean system though correct?

[lindborg]

Yes, that's correct. It's a "brick level" backup and restore so it's constructing the Unity subscribers and call handlers etc... one at a time on the restore and linking things up on the fly (i.e. all the one key menus, owners etc...) and it assumes a clean state when it starts. It makes checks at startup to make sure the system is clean and if it's not, it'll bail out before getting started to avoid causing any corruption or the like.

[mmitchell]

Just for my own info.

How does the import tool allow for a unified voicemail box. I always though that when I do "import from Exchange" that is what allowed for the unified process to happen. I assume that I am wrong in this case.

[lindborg]

It uses the fabulous SQLSyncSvr component (this is visible as the SQL Change Writer service in 4.0 and later). I populate the local SQL subscribers table with subscriber info from the backup and then call the SQL Synch Server component to do it's thing. It's smart enough to find users in the directory by directory ID, RDN or mail alias... if it finds a match by any of those criteria it'll bind to that user in the directory as the subscriber. If no match is found it'll create a new account on the fly.

If the mail aliases match in the new system you're good to go. If not, you'll have to spend some time with the Migrate Subscriber Data tool to move the subscriber data off the newly created mailboxes to the ones you want them to stick to.

[mmitchell]

well I get the Home 'DOH!' award for the day! thanks for the info.