All the best Greg. Nate
> ---------- > From: Greg Deckler > Reply To: Exchange Discussions > Sent: Wednesday, March 3, 2004 7:29 AM > To: Exchange Discussions > Subject: Final Farewell > > After nearly a decade of specialization in messaging and messaging > migrations, I am retiring from messaging migrations and moving on with my > career in Information Technology (IT). > > My recent publication, Achieving Process Profitability, Building the IT > Profit Center, > (http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?&isbn=0-595-28970-3) > has been extremely well received, generating a large amount of interest > and consequently; and quite unexpectedly I may add, a fair number of > different offers. I have chosen to pursue one of those offers and focus my > energies on business process automation. > > I would like to thank this community for all of the support and > collaboration that it has encouraged over the years and as my own way of > saying thanks to the community at large, I have created > freeemailmigrations.com, http://www.freeemailmigrations.com, a website > that encapsulates all of the knowledge and tools about email migration > that I have acquired and built over the years. It's not all up there yet > because I have thousands of documents to sort through, but the essentials > are there. > > The particular reasons I am retiring from messaging and messaging > migrations are many, but were solidified by a recent discussion on this > list involving Microsoft's MVP program. I came to realize that the recent > discussion involved essentially the same issues and individuals from six > or seven years ago and I figure that any time you find yourself rehashing > the exact same issues with the exact same people as six or seven years > ago, it is probably about time to find a new line of work...so I did. > > For those with a continuing interest in my views on Microsoft's MVP > program and the flawed, vendor-centric nature of IT, I encourage you to > check out the new home of the IT Ethics Newsletter, > http://www.itethicsnewsletter.com. This newsletter focuses on practical > ethical issues within IT and; in particular, the co-opting of the IT > educational system and definition of an IT professional by vendors as well > as the impending regulatory doom that is just over the horizon. > > For all of my public and private supporters both on and off the list over > the years, I offer my many thanks and best wishes in all of your future > endeavors. And for all of my detractors and the inevitable "good riddance" > replies...well...again, I offer you my best wishes in all of your future > endeavors. > > Farewell, > > Gregory J. Deckler > > > P.S. My final email migration was completed over the Valentine's Day > weekend in the beatiful city of Glendale, AZ. I had the great pleasure of > working with an extremely bright and talented IT staff in completing the > migration of roughly 2,000 mailboxes from GroupWise 5.5 to Microsoft > Exchange 2000. I spent 4 days consulting, configuring the migration > environment and installing and configuring Rocket. Subsequently, we began > the email migration at 5:00 PM on Friday the 13th. Prep work was completed > by 10:00 PM. Prep work consisted of turning off virus-checking software, > backup routines, resetting GroupWise mailbox passwords and setting proxy > access rights for GroupWise users. We used GBMT for this although one of > these days maybe I'll get around to rewriting that horrid little tool. > Migrations began at 10:00 PM and ran unattended until about 9:00 AM the > next morning. 10 GroupWise PO's spread over a WAN were involved and all > were migrated to a single Exchange 2000 server ending up with about a 71 > GB mailbox store. Cleanup was completed by about 3:00 PM on Saturday the > 14th. It was a "light switch" migration of about 2,000 mailboxes and > resources (about 60 GB of email data) utilizing three Rocket migration > workstations. > > Now, they did have some issues, but it was with Exchange itself, not the > migration. Their Exchange Information Store service kept crashing. To make > a long story short, I quickly helped them determine that it was their > anti-virus program e-safe. I explained that I'm not a big fan of > anti-virus services on Exchange servers themselves, I just see it as > overkill and it tends to cause more problems than it solves. However, they > weren't too pleased regardless because their position was that their > product, e-Safe, was Certified by Microsoft to work with Exchange 2000 and > therefore shouldn't be causing these kinds of problems. Just to clarify, > that was the point they brought up, not I. So don't get your panties all > in a bunch. Of course, my response was that certifications from Microsoft, > either software or otherwise, are absolutely meaningless. I realize that > this might offend some people out there, but it's the honest truth and if > you can't handle it you are not being objective about the matter. > > Anyhoo, this last email migration is pretty typical of the results one can > expect using Rocket. Users arrived back to work on Tuesday and utilized > our new tool, Spark, to convert their personal GroupWise NAB information. > Spark is a far, far better tool than AddressMagic or other, similar tools > and is now available for free as well. So don't spend tens of thousands of > dollars on Wingra, CompuSven, AddressMagic, consultants and the like. > Everything you need for a successful email migration of 50 seats or 50,000 > seats is all there on freeemailmigrations.com. > > Although I never had a chance to test larger "light switch" migrations, > one could easily perform a "light switch" migration of 5,000-10,000 > mailboxes or more using Rocket over a three-day weekend and still get > plenty of sleep. Just fire up Rocket and let it go. I have completed a > number of 10,000-20,000 seat migrations and larger using Rocket, but that > size of an organization generally opts for more of a coexistence period > due to client and workstation deployment limitations. These guys out in > Glendale had their act together and were able to deploy Outlook and remove > the legacy GroupWise client without touching any workstations. And all of > the tools and knowledge used to complete this successful email migration > and many, many others are now available for free at > freeemailmigrations.com. I encourage you to put them to good use. > > _________________________________________________________________ > List posting FAQ: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm > Web Interface: > http://intm-dl.sparklist.com/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=exchange&text_mode=&la > ng=english > To unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Exchange List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > To unsubscribe via postal mail, please contact us at: > Jupitermedia Corp. > Attn: Discussion List Management > 475 Park Avenue South > New York, NY 10016 > > Please include the email address which you have been contacted with. > > _________________________________________________________________ List posting FAQ: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm Web Interface: http://intm-dl.sparklist.com/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=exchange&text_mode=&lang=english To unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Exchange List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe via postal mail, please contact us at: Jupitermedia Corp. 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