Advice on a mail migration

[neotechnet]

We're getting ready to migrate about 200 mailboxes from GoDaddy imap accounts to 365. Out of those 200 there will be a portion for web email only and those using Outlook.

Been thinking through this and before we change the MX records here is what I think the process should be to avoid disruption and pain.

Put in a forward rule on their imap account to their 365 mailbox.

Use Office 365 imap migration to pull in all existing email.

Configure Outlook accounts over to 365. When they receive email it's still going to GoDaddy but getting forwarded to 365.

When Outlook accounts are all done run the 365 migration again to get missed email and I assume it will skip over duplicates?

Change the MX records.

Anything wrong with that? This way you are doing a slow cut over instead of changing the MX records then scrambling to get users with Outlook setup again with access to their old email.

Any input would be appreciated?

 

[Sky-Knight]

All of that... is wrong...

O365 has migration tools, you reset everyone's email passwords, make a spreadsheet out of them, run the mail sync and it pulls all the mail over. When you're ready you change the public DNS records and call it done.

If that's too hard, and you want more control, that's what BitTitan is for. https://www.bittitan.com/migrationwiz/mailboxes/

You're actually doing things very much the hard / wrong way. No mail forward is required... there is nothing on O365 to forward to until the domain is attached AND online.

With the built in tools there is no such thing as a "slow" cut over, even with Bittitan helping you pull the trigger on a Friday night and you spend Monday helping people configure Outlook.

A 200 mailbox migration is a monster of a project to get your teeth wet in.

 

[neotechnet]

Putting in a forwarding rule is needed to capture emails that land in that mailbox after you change the MX records. I'm almost certain that Office 365 gives you a public domain that you can use for that exact purpose.

 

[putz]

We're getting ready to migrate about 200 mailboxes from GoDaddy imap accounts to 365. Out of those 200 there will be a portion for web email only and those using Outlook.

Been thinking through this and before we change the MX records here is what I think the process should be to avoid disruption and pain.

Put in a forward rule on their imap account to their 365 mailbox.

Use Office 365 imap migration to pull in all existing email.

Configure Outlook accounts over to 365. When they receive email it's still going to GoDaddy but getting forwarded to 365.

When Outlook accounts are all done run the 365 migration again to get missed email and I assume it will skip over duplicates?

Change the MX records.

Anything wrong with that? This way you are doing a slow cut over instead of changing the MX records then scrambling to get users with Outlook setup again with access to their old email.

Any input would be appreciated?

These are the general steps you should follow:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/ex...ating-imap-mailboxes/migrating-imap-mailboxes

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

You're over thinking this. Use MigrationWiz. Run a pre-stage migration that copies the mail from the GoDaddy IMAP to O365. By default it copies everything either 30, 60 or 90 days and older depending on what you select. Typically I just set it to 1 day. On cutover day you change the MX records then run a full migration in MigrationWiz. It'll pull the remaining mail from the old account. I believe you can run up to 10 "full migration" or delta passes after the cutover so there is no issue. Typically 1 or 2 is enough.

 

[neotechnet]

Thanks Putz that article is super helpful. If I'm reading those steps correctly the Microsoft tool will actually sync the mailboxes to 365 instead of just ingest and stop? If that's the case then a forward isn't needed since it will pull in email until the snyc it's stopped, according to what I'm reading.

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

I would also use Deployment Pro to do most of the Outlook setup work for you.

 

[Fred Claus]

Has anyone ever used services like BitTitan or Skykick? I'm constantly getting emails from these companies wanting me to use them for my O365 migrations.

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

Has anyone ever used services like BitTitan or Skykick? I'm constantly getting emails from these companies wanting me to use them for my O365 migrations.

Yep, if you look above, two of us recommended the BitTitan product, MigrationWiz.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Yep, there is no need to forward mail when you're syncing the mailboxes properly. The built in tools provided by Microsoft allow you to do this too, BitTitan just gives you more control, and it can deal with a wider array of issues. Because you have 200 mailboxes to worry about, I wouldn't even try this without BitTitan.

 

[nerd2u]

Is it $15/mailbox migration with migrationwiz?

That's 3 grand to migrate 200 users.

Sent from my SM-G870W using Tapatalk

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

Is it $15/mailbox migration with migrationwiz?

That's 3 grand to migrate 200 users.

Sent from my SM-G870W using Tapatalk

Yes. With some vendors such as AppRiver you get a discount though. Our normal migration price it $225 per mailbox. Though for this size we would be around $100 each and the User Migration Bundle does 90ish percent of the work. If you go with just the email migration piece it's less, but you have to do a lot of hands on work to set up the new user profiles in Outlook.

 

[neotechnet]

@Slaters Kustum Machines If you can just kindly confirm, the MS tool syncs the mailboxes continuously until you turn it off correct? So once you know you have all the email, you can turn off the sync tool and change the MX records, correct?

 

[marley1]

For a 200 user mailbox migration you really need to plan this better.

How are you going to reconfigure each users Outlook and Phones?

Is this all one domain or multiple?

Does the client have an existing domain controller?

 

[neotechnet]

They have 200 mailboxes on GoDaddy, imap mailboxes. They are currently getting back to me with a list of end users that will need either 365 Essentials or Premium. They also going to provide a list of who actually needs Outlook configured, it's probably not going to be all 200 but I'm not sure what the number will be.

They have 6 different domains spread across the 200 mailboxes. No DC, they are a restaurant chain so have retail locations.

 

[Sky-Knight]

@Slaters Kustum Machines If you can just kindly confirm, the MS tool syncs the mailboxes continuously until you turn it off correct? So once you know you have all the email, you can turn off the sync tool and change the MX records, correct?

If you can get it to work, yes you can run the sync as many times as you want with a cut over migration. Just aim the thing at pop.secureserver.net so the DNS doesn't move.

And once again MigrationWiz gives you more control, and you can mitigate issues on a case by case basis. The MS tool is essentially all or nothing, and if one mailbox faults, the entire import will fault. It's NOT good for a migration this big.

Given you indicated there is more than one domain, I suggest breaking the migration up by domain, because you're going to have to get users to reconfigure Outlook and Phones for every mailbox... it's a great way to blow up a help desk.

 

[neotechnet]

@Sky-Knight that's good to know but I'm assuming I can make a test run with the MS migration tool to make sure it's going to work before actually pulling the trigger?

 

[Sky-Knight]

@Sky-Knight that's good to know but I'm assuming I can make a test run with the MS migration tool to make sure it's going to work before actually pulling the trigger?

Oh most certainly, the cut over migration actually requires it. You feed it the file full of mailboxes and logins, and you push go. It starts syncing, and you come back to check on it until done. During this process mail is flowing the same way it always has, it's an utterly nondestructive thing. So once you have everything, you can schedule the DNS changes, do them, click the appropriate button to cut over, and watch it all swap. Then, every few days later until you're sure mail has stopped trickling into the old system, you can sync it up as many times as you want.

It's a rather manual process, and it gives you all the control in the world. You'll be using IMAP instead of POP for this though, and that's where things get strange because Godaddy in particular only guarantees a 70% uptime on those mailboxes. So if you have too many, and something goes wrong, the entire sync pukes. It can be frustrating simply retrying the whole thing over and over again to get one sync that works.

And of course, to do all that you have to know what the user's passwords are, so you end up breaking everyone's mail, to move everyone's mail, which breaks everyone's mail again. But that's all you can do to get out of Godaddy IMAP/POP I'm afraid. Even MigrationWiz will require this.

 

[neotechnet]

@Sky-Knight I wonder if in GoDaddy's case if I use the cpanel login it can use that admin login to access all the mailboxes? When you are in cpanel the admin login can access everyone's mailbox via webmail but don't know if that would be the case for imap access.

 

[Sky-Knight]

@neotechnet, Sadly, no... You have to use the user's login details to get direct IMAP access to each mailbox one at a time. I know... because I've done this a few times. Saving people from Godaddy is a full time job in and of itself, horrible platform. The Godaddy provided O365 being the worst possible place... you HAVE to use MigrationWiz for those, and mail WILL be down... because the same domain cannot be in O365 twice!