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Technotics
Projects: For a Fortune 500 Global Holding Company
- Migrate
users from multiple Microsoft Exchange Domains to Lotus Note/Domino
- Consolidate
multiple Notes Domains into a single Notes Domain
- Consolidate
worldwide Domino server into large platform regional servers
This 5 billion
dollar global provider of technical products and systems, industrial
products and services, flow technology, and service solutions
had a unique situation after a merger. 45 business unit locations
of the newly acquired company consisted of 13 Lotus Notes domains,
28 MS Exchange domains and 4 Groupwise shops.
The units
were located in several US cities, but also in UK, Germany, Austria,
France, Italy, Spain, Australia, Brazil, and the Netherlands with
several units in China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. The environment
to be migrated held approximately 6,000 users to be added to an
existing population of 6,000 Notes users.
To connect and consolidate 28 MS
Exchange domains, 13 Notes domains, and 4 Groupwise shops strategically
into a single Lotus Notes mail system.
The
Technotics Response
Use proven methodologies and the keen leadership and project
management skills of Technotics.
Andy Pedisich,
President of Technotics,
was pulled in to assess the requirements and to design the project
that would pull these MS Exchange domains and Lotus Notes domains
into an already existing corporate Notes domain.
The firm
also wanted to consolidate Domino servers onto a bigger, more
resilient platform, moving from geographically distributed WIntel
platform based servers to centrally located clustered Domino servers
running in the IBM iSeries AS400 environment.
Project
Goals
Goal
for Merger - "Day One": Connect Mail Directories
Management needed a big, immediate and easy win that
would be a symbol of unity within the new company. They wanted
it to be visible to all employees, to unify teams, and to pull
the disparate parts of the company together regardless of geographical
location or current mail system.
This fast,
simple symbol was to make it possible for every email user to
address mail to anyone else in the new enterprise using their
native mail addressing system. It would demonstrate their control
over the merger and link high level management during the critical
early stages of the merger.
Goal
two: Develop repeatable process to migrate/consolidate
Exchange and Notes Domains
They needed to unify the environment with simple steps
that would be easily communicated and managed by system administrators
and easily supported by a new help desk organization.
Goal
three: Consolidate servers from Wintel32 platform to IBM iSeries
Existing distributed regional Domino servers running
on Wintel32 platform needed a tech refresh. The decision was made
to consolidate users and servers to a pair of iSeries system located
at a centralized data center.
Step
one for the Merger - "Day One" objective
Andy's
first step was to pull together the directory systems of the disparate
mail systems. Technotics
used a combination of the Microsoft Exchange InterOrg Synch
Tool and the Microsoft Lotus Notes Connector along
with the native power of a Lotus Notes/Domino infrastructure.
On day one,
and right on schedule, employees from
every part of the globe used a single directory system. The early
win was achieved!
Andy's
top responsibilities during the project
- Developed
the overall project plan.
- Designed
and configured the MS Exchange InterOrg Synch tool that synchronized
the directories among all the Microsoft Exchange domains.
Microsoft Exchange has no native way of connecting directories
between domains.
- Designed
and configured the MS Exchange Lotus Notes connector to synchronize
the Exchange Global directory and the Lotus Notes directory.
- Analyzed
the acquired company's inventory and sites to determine the
methodology necessary for the project.
- Designed
a repeatable process for migrating Notes domains in the companies
acquired into the main Notes domain of the client.
- Designed
a repeatable process for migrating Notes certifiers of the
acquired Notes domains into the root certifier of the client's
domain using the business unit names for the OU1 level of
the certifier.
- Developed
a modular "Migration Package" for each migrated
business unit which contained all of the instructions that
local administrators would follow during the migration of
their site.
- Worked
with endpoint administrators to prepare their sites for migration
and managed the user migrations from endpoint servers.
- Researched
and evaluated migration software and made recommendations
to client.
Products selected:
The Binary Tree Common Migration Tool - www.BinaryTree.com
InstallPump - Softquest
Corporation
- Designed
a process to migrate users from multiple MS Exchange domains
to single Notes domain.
- Designed
and implemented a simple process for renaming Domino servers
using new certifier.
- Worked
with Notes domains to ensure that existing applications would
work under the new domain and certifier architecture. Worked
with vendors and business units to remediate applications.
- Developing
techniques that allowed Notes domains running under separate
certifiers to be merged into a single domain running under
a single certifier.
- Designed
and managed the project, right down to the Lotus Script button
sent to migrating users to point them to servers in the new
domain.
- Assisted
in designing the endpoint Domino server clustered architecture
on the IBM iSeries.
The
Result: Success!
Over
6,000 users have now been migrated to Lotus Domino and users
have been consolidated onto the IBM iSeries platform.
The
client has saved over $250,000 in its first year, and over $320,000
in its second year, in deployment and administration costs.
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