Update: this post was updated on October 24, 2017.
Microsoft has stirred up a quite load of enthusiasm by the recent appearance of Exchange 2016. As the new version raised inquiries among IT professionals for new solutions, Microsoft in fact did not soothe this yearning for any cutting-edge technologies. You get a bundle of improvements, out of which the removal of the Client Access Role and replacing MAPI with EWS seem to be one of the most relevant developments (read more about it). What’s more, if you had any high hopes for any breakthroughs in terms of version coexistence with legacy, Exchange 2003 or 2007, then you know now that with this version Microsoft has clearly stated its engineering policy and is rather far from that.
Exchange 2016’s architecture, as Exchange 2013, unfortunately blocks the way to deployment of legacy versions; and other way round, it is impossible to install Exchange 2016 in your organizations when you are working on earlier 2003 or 2007 version servers. The newest version may coexist only within Exchange 2010 and 2013 structure, and that successively won’t put an end to everlasting conundrum concerning mailbox migrations. Sounds like the same old song?
For those who are acquainted with the problem of Exchange migrations, there is no easy native solution to migrate with from Exchange 2007 or 2003 to the newest Exchange 2016 or earlier 2013 version. Whenever your determination and nerves are in shape, and you consider an upgrade by exporting and importing PST files or performing a cross-forest migration in stages, we won’t keep fingers crossed for you… but we will hand in to you a perfect and quick solution instead, CodeTwo Exchange Migration, a third-party migration tool.
CodeTwo Exchange Migration – migrate from Exchange 2003 or 2007 to Exchange 2016
If you are planning to move to the newest Exchange 2016 version, you cannot hope to swiftly perform it on the basis of Microsoft solutions. The giant from Redmond has made it clear this year that it won’t support co-existence of Exchange 2016 with legacy versions. That’s why CodeTwo Exchange Migration has been designed in the first place, to fill this gap and help you out with your admin duties.
With CodeTwo Exchange Migration you won’t have to perform “double hop” migrations anymore. Whether you are migrating from Exchange 2007 to 2016, or from Exchange 2003 to 2013 or 2016, you are fully backed up with the application. There is no necessity for any mid-stages upgrades like from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010. It is all done with direct and quick cross-forest migration; no matter which platform you start from, using CodeTwo Exchange Migration your data will always reach the target server.
CodeTwo Exchange Migration is a well-designed and smart application, so it automatically handles the deployment and other migration processes while in use. Readable and clear graphical user’s interface allows you to move your mailbox data between forests in a quick and direct manner. A cross-forest migration is no longer a challenge, as it requires only a few clicks for you to run the process and forget about it. At the same time during migration workings you don’t have to worry about email services availability, as the application does not interfere with those, they remain fully operational. However, the program lets you set up the amount of mailbox data to be transferred at a time, so depending on the set level it may have an effect on your network’s speed connectivity. The best practice is to perform migration tasks during the periods of the lowest network activity.
How is it possible with CodeTwo Exchange Migration?
The program’s relevant configurations and setups are based on intuitive wizards, so the program leads you through the process, starting from the installation of the software to your first migration job creation.
This brief process description explains how you can easily migrate data from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2016:
- After going through the quick installation of the program and specifying the source Exchange 2007 domain (you can set only one source server and many target servers), you may launch the new Job creation wizard where the initial steps include providing Job’s name, choosing a target server and adding Active Directory users’ or groups’ mailboxes to be migrated.
- You can set up the Automatch feature which helps in the migration process, as it matches mailboxes on both servers and creates mailboxes if they do not exist.
- Then, you can immediately jump to the Scheduler option where you may set migrations to automatically launch at a selected period of time.
- The Time filter feature will let you choose which data to migrate according to age. You may want to move only items from the last 30 days and as for the rest of data it can be added to other migration job and be moved later.
- Next, select which folder types you want to migrate by sorting out Folder filter settings.
- All set configuration for the current migration job may be reviewed in Job summary. You may revise the settings by just clicking the chosen option. Note that the Address rewrite feature is automatically enabled and allows to change addresses of mailboxes to SMTP. Other advanced options include: changing mailbox Concurrency to set the number of mailboxes to be moved at a time (up to 20); and setting a size limit for the moved items.
- The program generates detailed reports and log files which can be automatically sent by email. They provide scrutinized data about on-going processes and summarize the whole migration job progress.
The upgrade to Exchange 2016 is a new direction that many system administrators and organizations will be heading to. As Microsoft has not developed any solution yet to support the co-existence with legacy versions of Exchange, CodeTwo Exchange Migration will prove as a valuable tool in moving to the newest Exchange. Just try it out and avoid unnecessary hassle with “double-hop” migrations and exporting/importing of PST files.
Learn more about CodeTwo Exchange Migration
Check out also CodeTwo Office 365 Migration software
Once the migration is complete, is it possible to keep the mailboxes on the new Exchange synchronized with their peers on the old server?
What is the cost?
Hi John,
The software cost depends on the number of users you want to migrate. Please visit the CodeTwo Exchange Migration pricing site for detailed information.
Hiya, can you tool cope with the following rather bizarre setup. One of our clients did this many years ago before we started working with them
Domain A – running Exchange 2007
Domain B – running Exchange 2007
Domain A & B are not linked in anyway any more, but were at one point the same via VPN links. This was manually broken and the DCs in each site effectively tombstoned each other and then recovered via FSMO role transfer before Exchange was installed at each site. So, although the 2 domains operate perfectly well independently they will have exactly the same root security identifiers and similar.
Plan: Migrate Exchange 2007 on each of these to a single new domain C running Exchange 2016.
So I guess the 3 questions most pertinent are:
1) Is there any additional costs for having 2 different source Ex2007 servers
2) Can it deal with 2 different source servers that have the same domain security information
3) Does the tool require a direct connection to the source server (say via VPN and including DC connections), or can it pull the information via limited port restrictions (e.g. all via 443 over OWA) so we don’t have to look at joining the sites up again via VPN.
Thanks,
Sam
Hi Sam,
The software should have no problems migrating the environment you specified. Since there are two source servers, it would be the easiest if you installed CodeTwo Exchange Migration on both servers. The cost depends on the number of mailboxes you want to migrate, regardless of the number of source servers. Please contact our Support team for more information.
I have done an exchange migration for a smaller number of users by simply going into each client’s Outlook, then Exporting their contacts, mail & calendars to a .pst, then when all were exported, deleting the account in Outlook, then deleting the maibox on the server, uninstalling Exchange, installing the new Exchange 2016 on a new server, setting up the mailboxes and reconnecting all of the users with new accounts, then importing the .pst files.
Yes it is labor intensive which is why something like this is only practical for very small organizations. (such as Microsoft SBS )
Hello,
I will be doing a cross forest migration of Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2016. Will CodeTwo migrate calendars, all permissions and mailboxes with existing permissions to the new Exchange 2016 instance?
Thanks,
Dean
Hi Dean, Calendars (as well as all other mailbox contents) – yes, permissions – no. To migrate permissions, please check out the Microsoft Exchange Server Public Folder DAV-based Administration Tool: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=22427
Got a small non-profit client still running sbs2003. Going to install a new server/exchange 2016 system on a new domain name. Any issues with the migration tool for sbs2003?
Hi Jason, No known issues. Keep in mind that the price of the product includes full technical support – just in case an odd problem pops up.
I need to migrate from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2016 but in the same domain. Can i do this with your tool?
Hi Fanis,
Although a same-domain migration is possible after meeting certain requirements: https://www.codetwo.com/exchange-migration/faq?sts=5399#is-it-possible-to-migrate-mailboxes-within-the-same-domain-using-your-program (question no. 23), in your scenario, you would have to do either double-hop or cross-forest migration as Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2016 can’t coexist in one environment: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms.exch.setupreadiness.exchange2000or2003presentinorg(v=exchg.160).aspx.
In this case, a direct migration is only possible in a cross-domain scenario, which is fully supported by CodeTwo Exchange Migration: https://www.codetwo.com/exchange-migration/supported-scenarios?sts=5399.
We would like to migrate from a Exchange 2007 on Domain-A and migrate it to Exchange 2016 on Domain-A. Basically Migrating from Exchange 2007 on server02 to Exchange 2016 on server03. Is that possible with your software? I only see it talking about cross-forest migrations. I am not changing the forest, the forest will stay in-tact.
Hi Bart,
We do not recommend using CodeTwo Exchange Migration for same-domain migrations/upgrades.
In this scenario you will have to do a double-hop anyway (since it is not possible to install Exchange 2016 in a 2007 organization: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms.exch.setupreadiness.e16e12coexistenceminversionrequirement(v=exchg.160).aspx), so there’s no added value in using a 3rd party tool.
Thanks for the info. I have also installed 2013 and it doesnt see my exchange 2007 install either, so its getting fun.
Hi Bart, This article might help you: http://silbers.net/blog/2014/01/22/exchange-20072013-coexistence-urls/
Hello,
I have to move exchange 2003 on domain-A to exchange 2016 in a new domain B. I created the same users in the new domain B and I’m wondering if your tool can help on this one?
If not, I have to export about 25 mailboxes to a local PST file and import it.
Thanks for your fast answer, Jan from Belgium
Hi Jan,
That’s exactly the kind of scenario CodeTwo Exchange Migration can help with: https://www.codetwo.com/exchange-migration/supported-scenarios?sts=5399
You can trial the product on a limited scope of data per mailbox: https://www.codetwo.com/exchange-migration/download/?sts=5399
And if you have any questions or encounter issues, feel free to reach out to our Support team: https://www.codetwo.com/company/contact/?sts=5399
Pavel
We need to migrate from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2016. We have about less than 10 mailboxes, kindly send me quotation please.
Hello Michael,
To request a quotation, please use this form: https://www.codetwo.com/quotation/product/exchange-migration/.
Thank you!
Quote please. 10 employees, approx 10 mailboxes in two domains. Migrating from Exchange Server 2003 to 2016
Hello Muneer,
Please use this link to request a quotation: https://www.codetwo.com/quotation/product/exchange-migration/.
Thank you!
I have SBS2008 running Exchange 2007. Can your software migrate to Exchange 2016 on a VM running Server 2012 R2?
Hi Paul,
Yes, it can. It would be a cross-forest migration, as described here: https://www.codetwo.com/exchange-migration/cross-forest-cross-domain
Hi.
We are going to migrate 50 useres from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2016. Please quote.
Greetings from Cologne :)
Hello,
We need to migrate from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2016. We have about 60 mailboxes, please inform us if your tool is 100% tested and would like also a quote.
Thanks.
Hello Panagiotis and Alexander,
Yes, our software is always tested thoroughly. What’s more, it is successfully used by thousands of companies worldwide. If you would like our Sales Team to send you a quote, please submit your request via this form: https://www.codetwo.com/quotation/product/exchange-migration/
Thank you!
I have an issue with migrating Public Folder from ex2007 to ex2013,
After I run the migration batch it is completed with error: (MigrationPermanentException: Error: Property expression “Internet Newsgroups” isn’t valid. Valid values are: Strings formed with characters from A to Z (uppercase or lowercase), digits from 0 to 9, !, #, $, %, &, ’, *, +, -, /, =, ?, ^, _, `, {, |, } or ~. One or more periods may be embedded in an alias, but each period should be preceded and followed by at least one of the other characters. Unicode characters from U+00A1 to U+00FF are also valid in an alias, but they will be mapped to a best-fit US-ASCII string in the e-mail address, which is generated from such an alias.)
I removed the space in the “Internet Newsgroups” PF and remove all users permission and made it invisible and still getting the same error, how to solve it?
Hi Marwan,
What do you get when you run the below command?
Get-PublicFolder "*Internet Newsgroups*" | FL2007 to 2016 . what if the down time is not an issue . i am thinking about exporting all MailBoxes to pst files then remove the exchange 2007 completelty from the AD . then install 2016 and the import those pst files back .
what do you think ?>
Hi MedoZero,
Looks like it could work. But keep in mind that you may have to do some patching before installing Exchange 2016: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa996719%28v=exchg.160%29.aspx
For migrating 2007 to 2016 in a new domain, does this tool migrate the AD user also or does it require the AD user to already exist in the destination domain?
Also does the tool allow the mailbox to be migrated fully and then perform delta upgrades whilst the old mailbox remains online? (Similar to Quest, this would facilitate a quick and easy cutover with minimum downtime for staff)
Hi Ben,
Answering your questions below:
The AD user has to already exist in the destination domain. For more see Step 5 of this walkthrough: https://www.codetwo.com/userguide/exchange-migration/walkthrough-from-exchange-2007.htm?sts=5399
Delta migrations are possible thanks to the Rescan feature: https://www.codetwo.com/userguide/exchange-migration/admins-menu.htm?sts=5399#rescan
During the whole process all mailboxes remain online – CodeTwo Exchange Migration only copies the items and folder structure to the target folder.
Hope this helps,
Pawel
We are still in a mixed exchange 2003/2010 environment but would like to jump to exchange 2016. Is it possible with this tool?
Hi Tshidiso,
Yes, it is possible. The program allows you to perform direct cross-forest migrations of mailbox data from Exchange 2003, 2007, 2010 and 2013 to Exchange 2016. To see information on all possible migration scenarios please visit this page.
All the best,
Pawel
I will need to migrate 80-90 mailboxes from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2016…
Please quote for that number.
Hello Brian,
Please click this link to request a quotation.
Regards,
Pawel
Quote please. 50 employees, approx 75 mailboxes in two domains.
Hi Kirk,
Please visit our dedicated site to request a quotation.
Best regards,
Pawel
We need to migrate from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2016. We have about 60 mailboxes, and would like a quote for your tool. Thanks.
Hello Ron,
Our representative will contact you very shortly.
Have a great day,
Pawel
I am interested in getting a quote for the exchange migration tool, I need to migrate ~4500-5000 mailboxes from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2013/2016.
Hello Kevin,
We will contact you via email in this matter soon.
Best regards,
Pawel