I am knee deep in an Exchange migration currently of about 850 users from an Exchange 2007 environment to an Exchange 2010 environment. The mailbox databases are connected to a SAN via fiber and from the testing I've done so far I figure I can get about 24GB of mailboxes moved a night.
I have about a million questions with regard to this migration but right now but I think the most important is the following:
Is there a standard best practice for moving mailboxes?
- Should I spread users out across all the mailbox databases?
- Should I fill them up to say 70GB one at a time?
- Move a chunk of users to a mailbox every night?
- What’s the best way to keep track of how full databases are, where users are, etc.
- Is there a good way to spread users out automatically or should I just do it by best judgment?
Obviously I’ve never done a move like this so I guess I’m just wondering how I should approach this. Thanks.
EDIT:
I just realized that I should post my database structure, I think it may help show what I'm doing. Here are some pieces I forgot to mention:
- I have a DAG set up for 3 Exchange mailbox servers. Two on-site and one off-site
- I have 28 databases cut up across the 2 on-site mailboxes (14 and 14) with the third as a fail over.
- Currently about 2 TB of mail to migrate so we have a little bit of breathing room on these servers
Best Answer
I'd certainly suggest moving chunks of users out of their core hours (at night, as you say). Make sure the mailbox quotas on the new store are big enough!
As for how you load databases, I'd suggest you think about downtime to restore, say, 70gb of data vs. the tolerance of people in that database. You might group people in terms of the tier of service they want, or department, whatever works best for you. All I'd suggest is that whatever you do, you should structure it somehow and you should be consistent.