whitepaper lotus notes transition

8/9/2019 WhitePaper Lotus Notes Transition

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Lotus Notes TransitionWhite Paper

February 2008


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Contents

Executive Summary .......................................................................................................................... 3

Case Study 1: Fast ............................................................................................................................. 5

Migration Phases ............................................................................................................................................................. 5

Detailed Tasks and Roles ............................................................................................................................................. 8

Costs ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 9

Summary .......................................................................................................................................................................... 11

Case Study 2: Steady ....................................................................................................................... 12

Migration Phases .......................................................................................................................................................... 12

Detailed Tasks and Roles .......................................................................................................................................... 14

Costs .................................................................................................................................................................................. 16

Summary .......................................................................................................................................................................... 18

Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................... 20

Binary Tree ....................................................................................................................................... 21

Appendix A: Methodologies Reference ....................................................................................... 22

Transition Cost Estimator .......................................................................................................................................... 22

Application Analysis Envisioning Process ........................................................................................................... 22


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Executive SummaryThis white paper is intended primarily for current IBM Lotus Notesand Dominocustomers who

want to know the process steps and associated costs involved in transitioning their current

communication and collaboration infrastructure to the Microsoftplatform. In this white paper,

we have outlined two disparate case studies from customers who have made this transition in the

past two years. These organizations present very different transition approaches that showcase

how the steps and costs involved in a Lotus Notes migration project can vary based on correlated

criteria.

The first case study presents the experiences of a services company, Company A, which had

technologically-savvy users and a well-managed IT environment that provided for a very rapid

transition. After several weeks of planning, Company A migrated their 5,000 users e-mail

accounts and data during a single weekend. On Friday afternoon, users were sending e-mail with

Lotus Notes; by Monday morning, they were using Microsoft Office Outlookand Microsoft

Exchange Server.

In the second case study, Company B, a retail and wholesale company, had 10,000 users and a

more complex IT environment. Due to corporate acquisition, they had a heterogeneous

infrastructure that included Lotus Notes and Domino as well as Exchange seats, and they had

multiple Active Directoryservices with overlapping domain names. Additionally, their users skills

were very diverse. To ease the transition, Company B decided to include a year of coexistence

while gradually migrating users in work groups and training them to maintain productivity. Table

1 shows the time and cost for both migrations.

Table 1 Overview of Timeline and Costs for Company A and Company B Migrations

Company A: Fast Migration

Duration Total Cost* Number of Users Cost per User

13 weeks $228,171 5,000 $46

Company B: Steady Migration

Duration Total Cost* Number of Users Cost per User

15 months $1,458,088 10,000 $146

*Note: Both customers outlined in this document had previously purchased Microsoft Office, so the software pricing above

includes only Exchange Server licenses and Binary Tree migration and coexistence products.


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Both customers experienced very positive transitions to the Microsoft platform. However, the

duration of their migration projects and the level of effort needed by their teams were extremely

different based on their transition criteria. This white paper describes the different approaches indetail to assist current IBM Lotus Notes and Domino customers in planning for migration.

For confidentiality, we have used fictitious company names. However, the timelines, costs, and

results presented in this white paper are from real transitions from IBM Lotus Notes and Domino

to the Microsoft platform. When calculating software costs, we included only Binary Tree products

and Exchange Server licenses, as both companies had already purchased Microsoft Office 2003

licenses. Rather than reiterate existing methodologies, this paper focuses on actual decisions,

tasks, timing, and results. For applicable transition methodologies, see Appendix A: Methodology

References.


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Case Study 1: FastCompany A is a professional services company with over 5,000 employees in more than 500

offices worldwide. They used Lotus Notes and Domino for e-mail, including local replicas, but they

had no Web access to e-mail. Company A also used Lotus Notes for basic discussion applications.

Company As aging Lotus Notes e-mail solution no longer met the needs of their growing mobile

workforce; 85% of Company As employees are mobile most of the time, and they needed a more

seamless solution for e-mail and calendaring with the parent company and subsidiaries. Company

A also wanted to move their applications to more flexible and user-friendly Web-based interfaces

and to enable anytime/anywhere access to e-mail. Additionally, new employees were more

familiar with Microsoft products, which integrate with third-party products more easily.

Company As IT department evaluated alternate solutions and determined that maintaining Lotus

Notes and Domino would become increasingly more complex. Lotus Notes developers were

becoming more scarce and expensive, and they determined that Lotus Notes was not scalable or

flexible enough for their current needs. Company A had simply outgrown their existing Lotus

Notes platform capabilities.

Migration Phases

Company As migration was completed in the following phases:

Analysis

Planning

Pilot

Execution

Analysis (3 weeks)

Company As IT department started the transition process by analyzing their migration approach.

To create a complete team that would manage the migration, they enlisted outside resources,

including a migration architect, a migration engineer, and a migration project manager from

Binary Tree. The migration architect had an in-depth understanding of the migration process,

alternatives, and source and target environments. The migration engineer had a goodunderstanding of these as well, plus the migration technology and tools that would be needed for

a successful project. The project manager pulled all parties and documentation together, while

Company A managed all purchasing, facilities, and end-user communication.


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First, the migration team examined Company As users, messaging, and application usage. They

decided that they wanted to migrate the user community very quickly for the following reasons:

Avoid coexistence

1

Avoid managing two different messaging environments

Save software licensing costs

Use Microsoft Office Outlookthat was already licensed and installed on desktops or

could be easily pre-installed

Accommodate the majority of power users who could handle a rapid migration

Company A and the migration team elected to transition all 5,000 e-mail users during a single

weekend and wait to rebuild or migrate applications. Eventually, they would migrate applications

to the Microsoft platform using Microsoft Office SharePoint and Microsoft .NET.

A key component to Company As migration approach was selecting the right tool to facilitate the

actual migration. Their key considerations were achieving the highest degree of data fidelity,

migration throughput, and migration workstation management. Since the migration would

require a large migration environment (30 machines) and take place over a single weekend,

Company A needed to select a tool that would migrate messaging and calendaring data quickly

while providing the highest level of data fidelity to ensure positive experiences for end users.

The migration process also needed to be easy to manage. Managing 30 independent

workstations processing user data would require multiple migration administrators, while having a

central migration console would allow greater control and oversight of the environment andwould require only two administrators. Customer A evaluated the free tools available from

Microsoft as well as the three leading vendor migration solutions. Company A selected Binary

Tree's CMT Universal (now named CMT for Exchange) because the workload distribution

facilitated by CMT Universal outperformed the multi-threading capabilities of other tools, and

CMT Universal achieved better fidelity and overall throughput.

1Coexistence solutions at the time were not as good as they are today.


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Planning (3 weeks)

The migration team started planning the transition by determining the migration lab

requirements. Migration throughput can vary from 1.5GB/hour to 10GB/hour depending onnumerous variables, including the following:

Availability and performance of source servers

Availability and performance of target servers

Network speeds to source and target servers

Contents of source mail files (number of messages tends to have a greater impact

than message size, and calendar entries tend to take longer to migrate than mail)

Workstation parameters, such as memory and CPU

The team decided to use 30 workstations: 25 for true data migration, two to manage the process,

and three hot spares. For workstations, the team chose mid-range laptops less than five years old.Although higher-end workstations can increase throughput and lower-end PCs would be cheaper,

Company A needed to balance costs and logistics, particularly physical space to house

workstations. The team used two management workstations due to availability of staff.

Designing and building the Exchange environment normally requires two to three weeks. To

facilitate Company As rapid transition, the Exchange environment was fully created and hardened

before the migration.

Pilot (1 week)

During the pilot, the team analyzed specific throughput. In the pilot phase, the team used actualdata, unlike a proof of concept (POC), which tests feasibility (including data fidelity) and can

include data copies and VPCs. In the pilot, the team migrated 20 representative users. Migrating

only the IT users is not representative of the actual transition; therefore, Company A selected a

range of users, including business, mobile, management, and executive users from different

offices.

The team conducted the pilot during one week and completed it six weeks before the actual

migration weekend. They used Binary Trees CMT Universal (also known as CMT for Exchange) to

migrate messaging and calendaring data. The team discovered that they could not migrate all

data with their 30 workstations in one pass, and they could not use additional workstations due tologistics constraints. To provide the most seamless transition possible for users, Company A and

the migration team decided to schedule two stages for the actual migration. In the first stage, the

team would migrate data older than one month; in the second stage, they would migrate all

remaining data.

Company As users are primarily power users, so extensive training materials were not necessary.

Instead, the team used the communications module of Enterprise Migration Manager, a


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component of CMT Universal, to create documentation during the pilot and distribute quick

reference cards and links to Web-based training modules weeks before the actual migration.

To prepare for the execution phase, the migration team tested pre-configured, user-triggered

scripts available in CMT Universal to prepare user mail files. They also tested existing mail-enabled

applications.

Execution (1 month)

During the first two weeks of the migration execution phase, the migration team prepared for and

migrated data older than one month. In the third week, the team prepared users by asking them

to initiate scripts that would do the following:

Decrypt encrypted e-mail

Merge Personal Address Book into a mail file, which allows the migration engine toaccess and migrate this data centrally and eliminates the need to distribute an end-

user migration tool to access local data

For the final stage of the transition, two migration engineers and the project manager performed

the remaining e-mail migration over a weekend with no serious data fidelity issues. On Monday,

users were accessing their migrated e-mail, calendar, contacts, tasks, folders, and attachments

within Outlook. The project team resolved all migration issues over the next week, so the

transition was considered successfully completed one week after the second stage of the

migration execution phase.

For a month after migration, approximately 3% of users required additional support from

Company As help desk. Company As applications were migrated separately. Most of these

applications were rudimentary discussion databases, which were easily migrated to Microsoft

Office SharePoint.

Detailed Tasks and Roles

Company As migration required 1,083 hours over three months and involved the following roles,

as shown in Figure 1:

Internal project manager Two mid-level IT managers

Exchange administrator

External project manager

Senior technical architect

Two migration engineers

Figure 1 Hours per Phase by Role, Company A Migration


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Costs

The total cost of Company As migration was $228,171. That amount includes costs for internal

and external support, training, software, and hardware, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2 Migration Costs by Category for Company A Migration

Table 2 shows a more detailed breakdown of the migration costs by phase.

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

Internal ProjectManager

Mid-level ITManagers

ExchangeAdministrator

ExternalProject

Manager

SeniorTechnicalArchitect

MigrationEngineers

Execution

Pilot

Planning

Analysis

Internal IT

External Professional Services

End User Training

Hardware/Infrastructure Costs

Software Costs

333

250

17

83

267

133


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Table 2 Detailed Costs per Phase for Company A Migration

Internal IT Costs

Analysis Planning Pilot Execution Total Hours Total Cost

Project Manager $6,250 $6,250 $6,250 $6,250 333 $25,000

Mid-level IT

Managers (2)

$10,000 $10,000 $5,000 $5,000 500 $30,000

Exchange Admin $416 $417 $0 $0 17 $833

Total $55,833

External IT Costs

Analysis Planning Pilot Execution Total Hours Total Cost

Project Manager $0 $0 $7291 $7291 83 $14,582

Senior TechnicalArchitect

$0 $0 $26,666 $26,667 267 $53,333

Migration Engineers

(2)

$0 $0 $10,000 $10,000 133 $20,000

Total $87,917

End User Training Costs

Duration Total Cost

Administrators 3 days $3,000

Executives & Assistants 93 hours $11,625

Other Users (Web-based Training) 2 hours $3,000

Total $17,625

Software Costs*

Cost per License Total Cost

Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 $3,974 $15,896

Binary Tree CMT Universal, 5,000 User License $40,000

Total $55,896

Hardware Costs

Quantity Total Cost

Mail Servers 2 $4,000Client Access and Microsoft Outlook Web Access Servers 2 $4,000

SMTP Gateway 1 $2,000

Disk Space 2TB $900

Total $10,900

*Note: Both customers outlined in this document had previously purchased Microsoft Office programs, so the software

pricing includes only Exchange Server licenses and Binary Tree transition tool products.


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Summary

Company As transition from Lotus Notes and Domino is a great example of a very rapid

transition. Although this approach is not usually recommended, Company A wanted to avoid

coexistence, and their unique environment and the high percentage of power users enabled a fast

transition. By preparing well for their migration, Company A demonstrated that a large transition

can be done quickly and smoothly.


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Case Study 2: SteadyCompany B is a large retailer with over 50,000 employees across the United States. Company B

had 10,000 Lotus Notes and Domino users, and they added 40,000 Microsoft Exchange users

through acquisition. This merger was the driving force to transition Lotus Notes users to the

Microsoft platform.

Company Bs users included standard office workers and mobile workers who split their time

between 10 and 20 stores. These groups of users were less technically-savvy and not readily

adaptive to new software products. However, Company Bs IT department knew that all of their

users took e-mail very seriously. Some users were not going to easily accept changes to their e-

mail, and Company Bs mobile Blackberryusers were particularly sensitive to modifications and

service disruptions.

Company Bs acquisition also presented complex environment challenges. The two merging

companies had two network domains of the same name (CORP and RETAIL), which created Active

Directory merging complications. Despite the IT departments recommendation to merge Active

Directory environments first, political pressures prevailed; as a result, the Lotus Notes migration

was scheduled prior to the Active Directory migration.

Migration Phases

Company Bs migration was completed in the following phases:

Planning and design

Testing and pilots

Production deployment

Planning and Design (3 months)

Company Bs IT department led their transition. Microsoft provided some assistance in building

their new Exchange infrastructure, and Binary Tree had one migration engineer onsite full-time for

a year. Because their internal IT groups, including Domino, Exchange, Active Directory,

Networking, Support, and Application Development, needed to work together for a successful

transition, Company B informed them of the transition and let them determine if they should beexcluded. Then, all departments were informed of progress throughout the planning process.

Company Bs complex Active Directory environment, and the decision to migrate e-mail before

effectively merging Active Directory, presented a major challenge. Company B had to plan for a

seamless integration of Exchange and three separate Active Directory forests at the same time.


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To mitigate user reaction to the transition, Company B created a strong, layered communication

plan. They knew that many users would not read every document they received, so Company B

provided information about the migration through e-mail, portals, newsletters, and physical signsat building sites.

Company B associated ancillary servers, such as BlackBerry Enterprise Servers and Audio and

Video/Content servers, with Exchange. Additionally, Company B needed to plan for long-term

coexistence between all Domino and Exchange environments for e-mail and calendaring. To

ensure seamless interoperability between Lotus Notes/Domino users and Exchange users,

Company B implemented CMT for Coexistence from Binary Tree.

To minimize user impact, Company B selected several pilot groups to represent different user

types and prepared for questions and issues from each group. Company B also prepared pilot

users to provide feedback on the process, documentation, and data integrity and to test the

coexistence functionality.

When Company B was choosing migration tools, they considered two factors: migration process

management capabilities and customer support throughout the project. Because Company B

estimated that their migration would last longer than a year, they needed to ensure that they

could access support immediately if they needed it. Company B chose Binary Tree's CMT

Universal (now named CMT for Exchange) because it exceeded their requirements for features

and functions. Additionally, Company Bs previous experiences with Binary Trees support assured

them that any issues would be resolved without disrupting the migration schedule.

Testing and Pilot (2 months)

Using multiple pilot groups for the migration was critical to streamlining the migration process

and mitigating end-user issues. For two months, Company B conducted twelve pilots. They tested

their processes and documentation, and they discovered that 50% of their users did not read their

notifications about preparing for the migration. Company B sent e-mail messages to users that

contained buttons to initiate automated tasks; however, many users did not click the buttons, so

Company B modified the scripts to launch automatically when users opened the e-mail message.

Even then, Company B had to send the e-mail message three times to launch all migration scripts.

During the pilots, Company B tested their High Availability and Disaster Recovery plans when they

would have little to no impact on users. Then, Company B worked with their pilot users to identify

questions and issues and address them proactively.

While a seamless integration was critical for Company B, their environment was extremely

complex and would require several layers of coexistence. As a result, they consulted coexistence

experts to explain their coexistence options and help set user expectations.


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To fully understand the impact of migration, Company B started slowly and gradually ramped up

migrations every night. They expected the help desk to be overwhelmed during the migration

process, so Company B hired temporary workers who understood e-mail systems and migrationsto take help desk calls and help users in the offices.

Production Deployment (1 year)

Company B employed five full-time people for the production deployment phase, and a

migration expert from Binary Tree performed the migrations overnight. According to a Company

B employee, we could not have done it without Binary Tree.

Follow up and Support (ongoing)

Company Bs users required follow up and support throughout the migration process. For

example, several users did not process local data and called the help desk to ask why their e-mailcontacts were not migrated. To handle these cases, Company B established a process for re-

migrating contacts. They also provided additional support to executives and their assistants, as

accessing and processing other peoples e-mail and calendar entries in Outlook is very different

than Lotus Notes.

Detailed Tasks and Roles

Company Bs migration required 13,533 hours over 14 months and involved internal and external

roles. Internal roles included the following, as detailed in Figure 3:

Internal project manager

Technical team lead for Domino administration

Training facilitator

Domino administrator

Exchange IT administrator

Active Directory team lead

Eight Exchange technical administrators

Ten helpdesk support roles


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Figure 3 Hours per Phase by Internal Role, Company B Migration

External roles included the following, as detailed in Figure 4:

Senior technical migration architect

Migration engineer

Senior technical infrastructure architect

Senior migration analyst and planner

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

Production Deployment

Testing and Pilot

Planning and Design

20002333

250 200

817

350

1333

6250


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Figure 4 Hours by Phase per Role, Company B Migration

Costs

The total cost for Company Bs migration was $1,458,088. That amount included costs for internal

and external IT and professional services, training, software, and hardware, as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5 Migration Costs by Category for Company B Migration

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

Senior TechnicalMigration Architect

Migration Engineer Senior TechnicalInfrastructure

Architect

Senior MigrationAnalyst and

Planner

Production Deployment

Testing and Pilot

Planning and Design

Internal IT

External Professional Services

End User Training

Hardware/Infrastructure Costs

Software Costs

1333

1000

100

167


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Table 3 shows a more detailed cost breakdown by phase.

Table 3 Cost by Role for Company B Migration

Internal IT Costs

Planning and

Design

Testing and

Deployment

Production

Deployment

Total Hours Total Cost

Project Manager $12,500 $12,500 $75,000 2,000 $100,000

Technical Team Lead

for Domino

Administration

$38,889 $38,889 $38,889 2,333 $116,667

Training Facilitator $12,500 $0 $0 250 $12,500

Domino

Administrator

$3,333 $3,333 $3,333 200 $10,000

Exchange

Administrator

$13,611 $13,611 $13,611 817 $40,833

Active Directory Team

Lead

$8,750 $5,833 $2,917 350 $17,500

Exchange Technical

Administrators (8)

$6,666 $13,333 $46,668 1,333 $66,667

Help Desk Support

(10)

$0 $80,000 $232,500 6,250 $312,500

Total $676,667

External IT Costs

Planning and

Design

Testing and

Deployment

Production

Deployment

Total Hours Total Cost

Senior Technical

Migration Architect

$72,917 $29,166 $131,250 1,333 $233,333

Migration

Processing and

Troubleshooting

$43,750 $29,167 $102,083 1,000 $175,000

Senior Technical

Infrastructure

Analyst

$9,250 $6,167 $3,083 100 $18,500

Senior Migration

Analyst and Planner

$33,333 $0 $0 167 $33,333

Total $460,167


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End User Training Costs

Duration Total Cost

Administrators 5 days $5,000Developers, Architects, and Power Users 0 hours $0

Executives (Office Visits for 50 Executives) 100 hours $12,500

Administrative Assistants (100) 300 hours $37,500

Other Users (Web-based Training) 2 hours $3,000

Total $58,000

Software Costs*

Cost per License Total Cost

Exchange Server 2003 $3,974 $83,454

Binary Tree CMT for Coexistence, Binary Tree CMT Universal

10,000 User License

$103,965

Total $187,419

Hardware Costs

Quantity Total Cost

Clustered Blades for Mail Servers (with SAN Storage) 17 $68,800

Clustered Client Access Servers 2 $5,000

Outlook Web Access Servers 2 $6,000

BES Servers for Blackberry Gateways 2 $4,000

F5 Data Switches 3 $66,000

Disk space 4.9TBs $30,000

Total $179,800

*Note: Both customers outlined in this document had previously purchased Microsoft Office programs, so the software

pricing includes only Exchange Server licenses and Binary Tree transition tool products.

Summary

Company B estimated that the migration would last between one and two years. However, their

estimate was not based on appropriate planning; to stay on schedule, they incurred additional,

unexpected costs.

Migration of Company Bs applications was outside the scope of this project. However, during

Company Bs migration, many of their Domino applications broke. SMTP is the protocol used to

transfer outbound messages from Notes to Exchange. When applications or users sent embedded

buttons, embedded forms, or any other Notes elements, those elements were stripped out when

they were received by Outlook users. To prevent broken applications, Binary Tree now offers a

component to CMT for Coexistence called Zero Touch Application Remediation (ZApp). This


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optional component allows all mail-enabled applications to function without modification;

however, organizations should always consider the application environment in the planning and

decision phases.


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ConclusionThis white paper outlined two different migration approaches. Company A had the

heterogeneous environment and savvy user base required to pursue a fast transition. With

adequate planning and preparation, Company A was able to literally complete their transition

over a single weekend.

In contrast, Company B had a more complex environment and diverse user base. As a result,

Company B chose a more conservative approach to migration with a period of coexistence.

Company Bs experience with broken applications demonstrates that organizations should always

consider applicationseven when transitioning the messaging platform.

As demonstrated by these case studies, successful migrations require organizations to plan for

the transition appropriately. Additionally, they should analyze and understand their environment,

user capabilities, resource constraints, messaging infrastructure, and application inventory.


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Binary TreeBinary Tree is an industry leader in messaging and collaboration analysis, coexistence, and

migration. Founded in 1993 and headquartered in the New York metropolitan area, Binary Tree

has employees and offices across the United States and business partner representation on every

continent. Binary Tree is a Microsoft Gold Partner, an IBM Premier Partner, and a Google

Enterprise Professional Partner with deep skills in Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchange Server,

Microsoft Office SharePoint, and Google Apps.

Binary Tree's extensive experience with IBM and Microsoft technologies has made us the go-to

partner for all things Lotus, Exchange, and SharePoint related. From messaging and application

assessments, to complex integration and coexistence, to seamless migration, we have serviced

over 4,000 customers and 10,000,000 users over the last 15 years establishing a stellar track

record for customer satisfaction and solution innovation. Our staff of highly trained, certified, and

knowledgeable field consultants deliver projects on time and on budget continuously exceeding

customer expectations while minimized the business risk and pain associated with large-scale

changes to a corporate messaging and collaboration environment.

Website: www.binarytree.com


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Appendix A: Methodologies Reference

Transition Cost Estimator

The Transition Cost Estimator will help you discover accurate costs associated with transitioning

from a current Lotus environment to a Microsoft environment. It consists of a spreadsheet and

guidance document. The tool will provide information accurate enough for initial evaluation, but

should not be substituted for a complete site assessment when the migration process begins. The

tool covers all transition cost components, and it is very powerful in helping understand the cost

breakdown.

Use the Transition Cost Estimator to collect information about transition costs and to provide a

cost estimate for transitioning from Lotus Notes to Microsoft platform. This information can then

feed the Microsoft Business Value Analyzer to provide more accurate transition costs. The

Transition Cost Estimator can also be used as a standalone tool. The Transition Cost Estimator is

not intended to provide a final cost estimate; instead, it will provide approximate estimates during

the initial transition planning processes.

Application Analysis Envisioning Process

The Application Analysis Envisioning Process (AAEP) for Lotus Domino applications provides you

with a process for identifying, classifying, and measuring the complexity of an enterprises LotusNotes and Domino applications. This new methodology is part of the Notes Transition Framework

(NTF) that describes the end-to-end process of transitioning investments in Lotus Notes and

Domino to a more Microsoft-centric platform. AAEP helps you better understand your current

application environment. The primary goals of this process are to encourage a standard approach

that you can use to define application migration recommendations, more accurately estimate

migration costs and timelines, and thereby reduce obstacles for platform transition.

To download a copy of AAEP, please reference this link on the Microsoft public website:

Application Analysis Envisioning Process

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