Migrating Users from GroupWise to Exchange: How to Reconfigure Riva

There is a certain amount of planning required when customers choose to migrate their users from GroupWise to Exchange systems. Every change to the email environment has the potential to impact a Riva configuration.

Contents:

• When to use these procedures:
  • Planning factors,
  • Migration scenarios,
  • Requirements;
• Steps to migrate users to Exchange accounts.

When to Use These Procedures

Use these procedures to move users users from GroupWise to Exchange and reconfigure Riva On-Premise sync policies to support those changes.

Planning Factors

There are a few terms that apply to this article:

• "Source" Environment - comprises the GroupWise connection(s), the CRM sync policy and the corresponding Riva license for that environment.  The "Source" environment is where target user accounts are being migrated from.  Eventually, the source Riva environment will be decommissioned.

• "Target" Environment - comprises the Exchange connection(s), the CRM sync policy and the corresponding Riva license for that environment.  The "Target" environment is where target user accounts are being migrated to.

There are several important factors to consider:

• CRM Data Sync - GroupWise to Exchange migrations involve creating new Exchange mailboxes for users and disabling/removing user mailboxes from the "source" GroupWise environment.  For planning purposes, the target user will have to be removed from the source Riva GroupWise CRM sync policy and added to a replacement Exchange CRM sync policy.

• New Riva Connection for Exchange - A new Riva connection to the corresponding Exchange Web Service (for Exchange 2007 or 2010) needs to be created.

• Riva Exchange Connection Account - The "target" Riva connection account will need to be configured to have full access permissions to the target user mailboxes (for on-premise Exchange environments), or be an Exchange user that has "Delegate" access to the target user mailboxes (for hosted Exchange environments).

• New Riva CRM Sync Policy - Best practise is to create a new Riva CRM sync policy for the new target Exchange environment. Riva can support multiple CRM sync policies concurrently, thus permitting a staggered migration of users from the current "source" to the newer "target" Exchange environments.

  Important Note: It is critical to ensure that a target user is not listed in two Riva CRM sync policies at the same time. Failure to adhere to this practice will result in duplicate records in the CRM.

• Reasons that a Replacement Riva License is Required - Riva CRM server is licensed against the email connection. Since the email connections will be changing, a replacement license will be required even if the email domain name remains the same).  

• Impact of Initial Synchronization - Once users are added to the new CRM sync policy, Riva will perform an initial data sync between the CRM and the Exchange environments. Care must be taken to ensure that excessive data transfer is avoided and steps are taken to minimize the impact on target hosted services. Those steps include:

  • reduce the execution threads value to "1" or "2".

  • schedule initial sync to occur during quiet hours.

  • configure the CRM sync policy to use a moderate start date and time for historic item filtering.

  • configure the CRM sync policy to use organic contact filtering.

Migration Scenarios

These Riva procedures can support both types of user migrations:

• Bulk User Migration - this scenario involves migrating all of the target Exchange user mailboxes from the current "source" Exchange environment to the new "target" Exchange environment. 

• Staggered User Migration - this scenario involves a staggered migrating of target Exchange user mailboxes from the current "source" GroupWise environment to the new "target" Exchange environment. At any point throughout this process, some users will be on the current "source" GroupWise environment while others are migrated to new "target" Exchange environment.

A staggered user migration is always recommended as a best practise:

1. Test the new "target" CRM sync policy using a test account,
2. Test the new "target" CRM sync policy using one or two production accounts migrated from the "source" environment, and
3. Migrate the remaining production target user accounts (in one or more collection of users).

A staggered user migration allows for a test of the "target" environment before migrating the production users, and it allows migrating users in a manner that minimizes the disruptions to the GroupWise, Exchange, and CRM services.

Requirements

The requirements for both scenarios remain the same:

• On the Windows system hosting Riva On-Premise server, ensure that you can connect to OWA (for Exchange 2007 or 2010) using the Riva Exchange connection account.
• Ensure that you have the Exchange NTLM or AD UPN connection credentials for the Exchange connection account:
  • NTLM - DOMAIN\Username, e.g. EXCHANGEHOSTADDOMAIN\ConnectionUser
  • AD UPN - Username@AD_Domain, e.g. ConnectionUser@exchangehostADdomain.com
• Create a new Riva connection account in the new "target" Exchange environment that meets all the requirements.
• Create a new test user account in both the new "target" Exchange environment and in the target CRM. Ensure that those user accounts have been enabled for EWS. Ensure that the Riva connection account in the new "target" Exchange environment has full access permissions (for on-premise Exchange) or Delegate access (for hosted Exchange) to the test user's Exchange mailbox.
• Create the production target user accounts in the new "target" Exchange environment. Ensure that those user accounts have been enabled for EWS. Ensure that the Riva connection account in the new "target" Exchange environment has full access permissions (for on-premise Exchange) or Delegate access (for hosted Exchange) to the production target user Exchange mailbox.

The procedures described in this article use the 2.4.23 release of Riva. Before you migrate users, we recommend upgrading Riva On-Premise to the latest public release.

Procedures to Migrate Target Users from GroupWise to Exchange Environments

The following steps are designed to be used for those circumstances when target user mailboxes will be moved to the "target" Exchange environment mailbox storage servers in batches of designated users (a staggered migration of users), and the primary email domain name is also changing. You can modify or not perform specific steps that do not pertain to the actual scenario.

This procedure includes the following activity:

1. Ensure that you have created a new Riva connection account for the "target" Exchange environment and a new test user account in the "target" Exchange environment and a corresponding account in the target CRM environment. (see Requirements above).
2. Complete "Step 1 - Create the new "target" Exchange connection".
3. Complete "Step 2 - Create a new "target" CRM sync policy".
4. Complete "Step 3 - Activate a replacement trial license" to request and activate a trial license if the primary email domain for the newer "target" Exchange environment is different than the original source Exchange environment; for example, "@omnidevlabs.com" changes to "@omni-ts.com".
5. For users that are being migrated, complete "Step 4 - Remove the target users from the GroupWise CRM sync policy".
6. Complete "Step 5 - Add the target users to the "target" Riva Exchange CRM sync policy".
7. Repeat items 5 to 6 above for each batch of users being migrated.
8. Once all target users have been migrated to "target" Exchange environment, complete "Step 6 - Remove the "Source" Exchange connection, policy and license".

STEP 1 - Create the new "target" Exchange connection:

This step presumes that the new "target" Exchange system will be Exchange 2007 or 2010 with EWS enabled.

1. In the Riva application, under "Setup" tab, open the existing Exchange connection.  Modify the connection name to prefix the term "Source" to the connection name.  This will make it easy to identify it for future steps.
2. Click the "Exchange Web Services" connection wizard. Complete the wizard using the new Riva connection account user credentials for the Exchange EWS connection.  Ensure that you include "Target" in the connection name to make it easy to identify at future steps, for example "Target - DEMO3-EX07".
3. Open the new EWS "Target" connection.
4. Under the "Test" tab, click the "Test" button.  This should result in a successful test which confirms that the new Riva connection account is working.
5. Add the test target user email address to the "Test Mailbox" textbox and click the "Test" button. This should result in a successful test which confirms that the Riva connection account can access the test target user mailbox.
6. Add a production target user email address to the "Test Mailbox" textbox and click the "Test" button. This should result in a successful test which confirms that the Riva connection account can access the production target user mailbox.
7. Click "Cancel" to close the Connection Edit window.

STEP 2 - Create a new CRM Sync Policy for the "target" Exchange connection:

1. In the Riva application, under "Policies" tab, create a new CRM sync policy for the EWS connection. Ensure that you include "Target" in the connection name, for example, "Target CRM Sync - Server EX07".  This will make it easier to identify in future steps.
2. Configure the CRM sync policy to use the CRM and new "Target" EWS connections. Add the test target account only.  Configure the rest of the CRM sync policy options and settings, and perform an initial sync to the test target user.

STEP 3 - Activate a trial license for the new CRM Sync Policy for the "target" Exchange connection:

1. In the Riva application, under "Policies" tab, right-click the "Target" CRM sync policy (created in STEP 2 above) and select "Request License".
2. Complete the "License Request" wizard for a trial license against the new "Target" Exchange environment.
3. You will receive an email with an activation code and a .license file. Save the attached .license file to the \Riva\Licenses folder. Do not remove any of the existing files from the \Licenses folder, because that will unlicense the "source" CRM sync policy.
4. In the Riva CRM Monitor application, STOP and START the service.

STEP 4 - Remove the target users from the Riva GroupWise CRM Sync Policy:

The Riva CRM sync policy for GroupWise does not provide the ability to select specific target users and then clear the data from the target GroupWise mailbox accounts. The best action is to remove the target user being migrated from the GroupWise CRM sync policy. This will prevent any further data sync between the target GroupWise user account and the corresponding CRM user account. Because the intent is to disable and decommission the GroupWise system, removing previously synced CRM data should not be a concern. 

Use this procedure immediately before migrating the target user mailboxes to the new "target" Exchange environment mailbox storage servers.

1. In the Riva application, edit the " Source" GroupWise CRM sync policy.
2. Under "General", make a written list of all the target GroupWise accounts that will be migrated.
3. In the target GroupWise users list, select the users to be removed from the policy and click Remove >>.
4. Save the policy and wait for Riva to sync the selected target users. 
   
   During the next sync cycle, Riva removes the selected target users from the sync queue and stop any further data sync between the GroupWise account and the corresponding CRM account.. 
    
5. In the Riva CRM Monitor application, confirm that the selected target accounts no longer appear in the user sync list.

STEP 5 - Add the target users to the "Target" Exchange CRM Sync Policy: