Time Is Running Out
for Microsoft Server 2003 Is Your Organization Ready for a Data Migration?
WRITTEN BY BILL VIRTURE A
NY migration is no small task for IT, and those who have conducted a migration in the
past often shy away from doing it again. That said, Microsoft Server 2003 Datacenter, Enterprise, and Standard Editions will go end of support (EOS) in July 2015, and many enterprises are still running Microsoft Server 2003. Many of those servers house Active Directory, Domain Controllers, Exchange 2003 Servers, SQL Servers, and more. Those Exchange environments will need to move to a newer platform such as Microsoft Exchange Server 2013. As you know, Exchange and Active Directory are tightly integrated, and migrating both Exchange and Active Directory will be a big challenge for many in the coming months.
Be Prepared Data migration is a very strategic
project, and budgeting should be part of the initial planning, which may include new hardware given that many Windows Server 2003 instances are likely running on older hardware. Data center migrations are a complex and time consuming activity that must be executed without affecting business operations. A hardware refresh, software upgrade, or both mean that SLAs including performance, availability, and data protection must be maintained. In smaller organizations, an offline
migration may be accomplished over the weekend, but in many SMB and larger enterprises these projects will occur in phases over several months.
Microsoft Exchange Migration Challenges There are several common challenges
of a Microsoft Exchange migration. Knowing them ahead of time will allow you to better formulate a plan and manage your environment during the process. These challenges include: • Understanding user and organization impact
• Inadequate data protection • Failure to plan for post migration • 32-bit applications running on Server 2003
• Inconsistent or absence of a coexistence strategy
Microsoft Active Directory Challenges Active Directory has its own
migration challenges (aside from changing the domain controller, Schema Master, and the Global Catalog), especially where acquisitions may include multi-domains, one way trusts, and limited Active Directory visibility by IT staff. This is no surprise to anyone who has been involved in previous migration projects.
Dell Migration Manager One available solution to help with
these headaches comes from Dell. It includes Migration Manager for Exchange and Active Directory, which makes your move from Server 2003 to Server 2012 a success. Dell’s Migration Manager not only empowers you to efficiently migrate and restructure Active Directory, it also ensures that users retain secure access to critical resources as the data is moved. Plus,
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it provides a secure coexistence strategy as the migration progresses toward completion. Dell has successfully migrated more
than 35 million mailboxes to Exchange. This includes more than 10 million mailboxes from Notes, GroupWise, and Google. Dell has also successfully migrated more than 40 million users to Active Directory. This includes nearly 10 million users migrated from Novell NDS.*
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Bill Virtue is a Senior PDS focused on Dell Security products at PC Connection with over 20 years of experience in Networking Solutions, Information Security and Identity Management. Discover more of Virtue’s insights on PC Connection’s official blog, Connected, at
www.pcconnection.com/blog
* Steve Dickson Vice President and General Manager of Dell’s Software Windows Management Team.
Eliminate Migration Headaches
With the end of support date for Windows Server 2003 fast approaching, there’s never been a better time to plan your data center transformation. Our experts have designed this helpful tool to get you started on the right upgrade path for your unique environment, applications, and workloads.
Visit
www.pcconnection.com/ WindowsServerEOS to get started.
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