Exchange Novell GroupWise® Migration

Chip Bartunek

Project Manager,

MeritCare Health Systems

Hari Pallempati

Nterprise Serviceline Principal

Novell Consulting

Ed Hanley

Senior GroupWise Consultant

Novell Consulting

MeritCare Overview

Background Information

Two main hospital facilities in Fargo serving nearly 2 million people a year

44 locations in total

The largest group practice in North Dakota

Largest private employer in the State of North Dakota (6,200+)

130 FTEs in Information Systems

MeritCare Awards

100 Most Wired Hospitals in the United States (1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 Hospitals & Health Networks magazine) 1

Top 100 Cardiovascular Hospitals (1999, 2000, 2002, 2003,2004 Solucient)

Top 100 Hospitals (2004 Solucient)

Top 100 Integrated Healthcare Networks (2000, 2002, 2003 Modern Healthcare magazine)

eHealthcare Leadership Gold Award for Best Recruitment Web Site (2004 eHealthcare Strategy & Trends)

eHealthcare Leadership Distinction Award for Best Health Content for meritcare.com (2002 eHealthcare Strategy & Trends)

America's Top Hospitals for coronary bypass surgery and heart attack (2003 Money Magazine -- data obtained from HealthGrades)

Consumer Choice Award for quality in healthcare and image (2000 National Research Corp.)

Top 50 Cancer Center (1999 U.S. News & World Report)

The Problem…

“The problem with our current email system is that it’s being used as a document storage system and not as a collaborative tool, as it was intended”.

-MeritCare Chief Information Officer

Total email database size: 400GB

Number of public folders in Exchange: 1,347

Number of emails in public folders: 39,252

Number of attachments in public folders: 9,385

Exchange at MeritCare

Exchange 5.5 for more than 6 years (version to be sunset by Microsoft in the near future)

Unstable system

Had outgrown the system in size and performance

400 GB of data and one server at 98% capacity)

Unreliable backups that required full restoration

Estimated 4-day recovery, if at all

Only way to recover deleted email

Virus problems (one day email outage due to virus)

Outdated MS Outlook 97 client

MeritCare Pre-Migration Environment

74 Novell NetWare® v6.x servers Primarily File&Print)

120 Windows servers (application specific)

eDirectory™ v8.7.3.2 is our primary directory

No active directory

Windows 2000 client on desktops

ZENworks® v3.2

Exchange 5.5 across 3 servers

Re-Evaluating The System

Requirements for a new messaging system

Familiar look and feel of new system

Improved security

Improved system reliability (less downtime to our customers)

End user policy enforcement (email retention, archiving capability, size caps)

Improved monitoring and management capabilities

Restore lost data in a reasonable time

Narrow down the number of primary vendors

Keep the MS Outlook client (at first)

Low cost to install, migrate and support

Good fit with existing infrastructure/administrative familiarity

Low level of implementation complexity

Ease of migration

Vendor Selection Process

Determine high-level email needs

Initial vendor research

Request for Proposal (RFP) sent to 4 vendors

Evaluated RFP responses submitted by 3 vendors

Narrowed vendors to 2

Invited 2 vendors for onsite demonstrations

Recommendation to Chief Information Officer (CIO)

Why Choose GroupWise?

Novell was already a primary vendor (NetWare, eDirectory, ZEN)

Good experience with Novell technology

GW 6.5 client more like Outlook 97 than Outlook 2000 is like 97

Best initial Licensing cost (GroupWise bundled with iChain, Secure Login, Netware and ZenWorks)

Ongoing cost of maintenance (back-end administration is proactive)

Best fit with existing infrastructure

Will replace room/vehicle scheduler with GW resource scheduling

Will replace in-house staff directory with eDirectory

May use GroupWise Document Management System in the future

Good vendor presentation and support during decision making process

No need to implement Active Directory at this time

Who Made the Decision?

Influencers

End User Representatives

Information Systems Management Team

Server Team

Recommendation

Information Systems Management Team

Ultimate Decision Maker

Chief Information Officer

Pre-Migration Planning Activities

Several months of pre-migration planning and testing (roughly 6 months)

Account cleanup/reducing size of database:

Dead accounts

Reducing size of email boxes

Could not rebuild database

Devised plan in the event we lost Exchange

Migration Date: September 3rd – 6th, 2004

Migration Target Duration: 43 hours

Purchased Computer-Based Training, Web-Based Training and Train-the-Trainer class

Pre Migration Preparation Phases – Novell Consulting engagements

Requirements Assessment, Architectural Design and Implementation Planning and Migration Strategy

Duration: 3 weeks

Build and Testing Phase

Testing was done in the following areas: Clustering Functionality, GroupWise functionality, Application Integration, GroupWise Client configuration and Test Migration.

Duration: 3 weeks

Migration Filters

Items migrated:	Mail, Appointments, Contacts, Tasks, Notes, Posted Items

Items not migrated:	Documents (attachments), Deleted Items, Sent Items

Items that DO NOT migrate:	Forms, Personal Address Books, Public Folders

Ignore mail items created before:	NA

Ignore appointments start dates before:	1 year

Ignore appointment start dates after:	1/1/05

End date for infinite appointments:	12/31/04

Force end date for all recurring appointments:	Yes

All day appointments as notes:	No

Migration Timeline

Friday, September 3rd

5pm – Restricted access to Exchange by all users

6pm – Migration of specific targeted accounts underway

9pm – Cease migration, “Alpha Testers” (9) checked their email accounts in GW

10pm – Bulk migration restarted (continued through the night)

Saturday, September 4th

8am – Rapid installation of client to all “in-town” PCs (4,800)

4pm – Migration finished (migration time: 23 hours)

4pm and on – miscellaneous testing and monitoring of system; decision to “go-live” on Monday at 12pm, 15% of workforce

7pm – Noticed issue with GW Client configuration due to packaging

10pm – GW Client packaging issue resolved (decision was made to redo the rapid installation to desktops)

Sunday, September 5th

5pm – Issue identified with htm attachments embedded in emails

6pm – Assessed situation, devised options

9pm – Decision was made to rerun migration with updated GW Migrate program; go-live pushed to Tuesday 8am

Migration Timeline (cont.)

Monday, September 6th

12am – Remigration commenced

8am – Rapid reinstallation of GW Client to in-town desktop PC starts

11am – Finished remigration (migration time: 11 hours)

11am and on – vigurous testing and monitoring of system

Tuesday, September 7th

6am – Regular HelpDesk and specialized GW Support available via phones (available for the next 6 days)

7am – 48 “on foot” support personnel deployed to various sites (15 “on foot” support for the next 6 days)

7am – GW Client icon activated for all MeritCare Associates

Class room training on GW via IS Trainers ongoing…

Total Email downtime: 87 hours

Total Migration time: 67 hours

Post Migration Assessment

Positive – Peace of Mind

Minimum end-user disruption

Achieved less cost for email administration – 1 tool to used

GroupWise has been stable and reliable

Migration deemed a success

We can now restore email boxes

Maintenance can be done to the system without interruption of service

Downtime for end-users since migration has been less than 1 hour

Standardized all email addresses

No virus attack since migration

Suggestions for Improvement

Have a pilot system with 50 migrated users in place for a period of time before the enterprise migration

Provide detailed information to the end users on the differences between Exchange/Outlook and GW

Better mapping of current system usage to functionality of both products

Better information about 3rd party products

More end user input for functionality and features

Incorporate end user and administrator training into standard migration plan

Quotes from Users

“Its nice to be able to recall a message and know that it’s gone”!

“It is great to be able to do maintenance on the system without disruption of service to the customer”.

“I use the junk mail folder capability and it works very, very well”.

“The instant messenger in GW has made me more productive”.

“I have my email open all day long so its nice to be able to schedule equipment in the same application”.

“I can easily collaborate with co-workers using shared folders and shared address books”.

“The ability to archive on-the-fly makes it tons better for me to manage my email”..

“We spend considerably less time working on security threats than when on Exchange”.

What next for MeritCare

Document Management at User Level

Enterprise Deployment of GroupWise Instant Messenger

Room / Vehicle Scheduling using GW Resources

Replace in-house staff directory

GroupWise Architecture

If you are interested ..

Try the new Novell built Exchange to GroupWise migration Tool at the BrainShare® Solution Lab

Request one of the Novell Category Specialist to do Demo or POC based on your requirements

Engage your consulting Area Principal or Nterprise Service line Principal if you would like to leverage Consulting services

Engage Novell to develop a business case justification for the Migration

Q&A

BUS130

2003-12-08T12:43:39