Migration
With Open-Xchange, customers have several deployment option available to them. These fall into two categories: On-Premise or OX Cloud. In all cases, the OX Migration team will support the move from an existing messaging platform to a brand-new Open-Xchange solution.
All email and related data such as messages, folder structures, user rules, calendar events, and contacts are migrated while OX experts make sure to minimize user impact and maximize user acceptance during the migration of your email service to the new Open-Xchange platform.
Migration Architecture
The Migration of large email platforms is a complex task. It requires automated tools, clear processes, and implementation of best practices on troubleshooting and end user communications. These tasks are important during the entire process, from the general announcement to very factual process descriptions and guidance.
From a technical standpoint, data migration is divided in four tasks
Implementation of double provisioning to keep accounts in source and target systems in sync during migration period.
Profile load, consisting of the extraction of the profiles of the users to be migrated from the source system and importing them into the OX platform.
Mailboxes preload phase, which is the initial bulk copy of mailbox content to the destination platform through the IMAP protocol.
Final users migration, cut-over or users switch phase, when end user accounts are actually migrated and can start using the OX solution.
Migration Tools
The integration of existing components and systems usually is essential to our customers. Therefore, we
also offer additional services like integration of provisioning, SMS/MMS add-ons, user tracking or
even 3rd party tools when not provided by Open-Xchange.
User Profile Load Module
User profiles are typically extracted by the customer and provided to OX. OX Load Modules will convert the source format, split the main list to sub lists for optimizing parallelisms and finally import into the OX platform.
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Migration Framework
The Migration framework is the main driver of the migration process and manages the email IMAP migration tool and all the data connectors to extract all non-IMAP data such as per user settings, mail filters, calendar events, and contacts. It automatically updates the migration flag when a user is migrated successfully and support both mailbox preload and final user migration.
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dsync
Dovecots dsync is the core tool used for migrating mailbox content and structure. It allows mailbox data to be copied via IMAP while users are still logged in, allowing a full preload of the system without any end user impact during the user switch phase. The number of dsync processes can be dynamically changed during the migration to keep the system load from becoming too high on both legacy and new platform.
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Data Connector Module
The Data Connector Module is responsible to extract all non-IMAP data like contacts, email filters, calendar events etc. from the source system and converts them to be compatible with OX App Suite. The Data Connector will interact with the source system in real time per user or batch.
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Migration Database
The Migration database is a MySQL DB used by migration framework to store all temporary user information related to the ongoing migration such as single user migration status, last error encountered, etc. It is a different database than the LDAP directory used by OX platforms to store the migration user status.
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Client Reconfiguration Module
The OX Migration team can assist you in smoothly managing any email client reconfiguration required. For example, this may be required when migrating from OTT solutions, where the final end users are pointing their email clients directly to OTT controlled hostnames.
Migrating your
Email Solution
Communications: Migration messaging is change communication
Any successful migration communication has a user-centric approach. Assessing the user´s situation and role within the migration process will create the right communications mindset. It is important to understand that a migration project affects your users as they are pulled out of their comfort zone. Whether or not the legacy system provided a positive experience for the user is not relevant at this point. Understanding that it bears a level of discomfort is important and crucial for the entire migration process, and the communication part especially.
At this point, the OX Customer Success team will provide the experience and best practices to create a positive migration experience for you and your users. Focusing on outbound and inbound communication as well as in-product onboarding and activation for users, they will help you setting the scene for a great start with your new OX solution.
Contact us for detailed information and questions about our Migration services and how we can support your project.
