If the two servers are located on separate machines, you can send out an email to all of the users and have them create a second account in their local email program. This would mean that you will have to create the user's email accounts on the IMail server, but depending on how those accounts are stored (ie: within a domain, in a local database, etc.) this may or may not be an easy transition.
If you have a support group that is responsible for doing all of the setup on the machines, they would have to setup the new IMail accounts on the machines. The second account would be setup to start sending all of their mail on from the new IMail server and receive any mail that arrives at the new IMail server. The old account would only receive mail off of the OLD Exchange server. Using this method, you will experience some difficulty with the initial setup of the user's accounts on the new IMail server simply because you will be starting from "scratch", but you will not have to move all of the mail because, once the new accounts are built on both the IMail server and in the user's local mail client, you will change your mail records to start redirecting the mail to the new mail host. Given the fact that the DNS entry change may mean that some remote hosts will continue to direct mail to the old Exchange server for a few days, the users will still receive mail from the old Exchange host, but will immediately begin to send out mail on the new host (as soon as their accounts are built on the IMail server and in their local client). We have used this method with almost 100% effectiveness when moving our customers from one ISP to another and they were concerned about the potential loss of any email. Depending on the traffic you see on the old Exchange server, you may be able to shut it down in as few as three days or you may have to leave it up for a month. The time it will continue to receive email will depend on the TTL settings stored on the remote hosts who are sending email to the end users. I have seen some misconfigured DNS records that almost never check for updates on an address because their TTL never flushes their local cache. Good luck! Bruce Barnes -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Sanford Whiteman Sent: Friday, April 12, 2002 00:51 To: Scott Colburn Subject: Re: [IMail Forum] Move messages from Exchange 5.5 to Imail 7.06 > I am looking for a relatively painless way to move all the mail from > our current M$ Exchange 5.5 server to IMail Server 7.06. I've done a lot of research for a server-to-server solution and have never found one that fit the bill. Some of your best bets are: - Drag-and-drop with MAPI/IMAP4, PST/IMAP4, or IMAP4/IMAP4 - Downloading to Netscape/Mozilla over IMAP4, scripting some minor adjustments, and copying the MBOX files to the Imail server file system - Converting from MAPI or PST to Netscape or MBOX using one of several third-party utilities, and modifying and copying the MBOX files as above I know it sounds painful, as these are all client-side, but so it goes. If Netscape's Migration Toolkit for NMS imported from Exchange, that would be awesome, but I guess they know they're fighting a losing battle. You're likely looking at a gradual migration, with both servers up for a period of time; I can help brainstorm a peering setup that can help the two talk to each other if necessary. -Sandy Please visit http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html to be removed from this list. An Archive of this list is available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Please visit the Knowledge Base for answers to frequently asked questions: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/ Please visit http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html to be removed from this list. An Archive of this list is available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Please visit the Knowledge Base for answers to frequently asked questions: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/
