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Exchange and Lotus Notes - interoperability and migration

I've been arguing with my husband today.  I've only been back in the UK for a week, but we've had a heated discussion all day on Technology! (He's an engineer suveyor and has nothing to do with IT beyond power user sort of stuff).  He works for a major Insurance company in the UK that has undergone a merger.  His company used to run Exchange, the other company used notes, and now the merged company runs Notes.  He spends a lot of his time in his office whinging about synchronisation of his database. OK, he only has a 64k line in to his office to sync where I've got the luxury of 1/2 mb (yes it's luxury, I live in the countryside and before I had the 1/2 meg link, I had 33k!)

So, we're batting backwards ad forwards about the benefits / deficits / issues of the Notes system, and finally came to the interoperability issues of running Notes and Exchange together in the same environment.  So i've done some digging on the web (I was on a mission this time to be right, you know what Imean ladies),  and found a set of resources that I thought I'd bung in one place for future reference (as they're scattered around a bit)... So here goes...

The Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Connector for Lotus Notes supports messaging and calendaring interoperability between Lotus Domino R5/R6 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003 Active Directory. This tool replaces the Connector that ships with Exchange Server 2003 (including SP2), and includes several updates to support better message fidelity when routing email between Exchange and Domino, support of iNotes and Domino Web Access clients, enhanced Unicode support and reliability.
 
The Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Calendar Connector for Lotus Notes supports the sharing of calendar free/busy schedules between Lotus Domino R5 and R6 and Exchange Server 2003. This tool replaces the Calendar Connector that ships with Exchange Server 2003 (including SP2), and is designed to be used with the Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Connector.
 
The Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Migration Wizard for Lotus Notes supports the migration of Lotus Domino R5 and R6 mailboxes and associated Domino directory information to Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003 Active Directory. This tool replaces the Migration Wizard that ships with Exchange Server 2003 (including SP2), and includes improved retention of contents and Unicode characters during the migration from Domino to Exchange Server 2003.
 
Migrating from a Lotus Notes/Domino infrastructure to Exchange Server 2003. By default, Windows accounts with administrative access are denied permission to read the content of ordinary Exchange mailboxes. For ExMerge to merge data with the original database, it must be able to open mailboxes in that database. Therefore, ExMerge cannot be used for this purpose by an administrator without first overriding the permissions denials.
 
Resources for Moving to the Microsoft Collaboration Platform
 
So there you go darling... Read all that and we'll argue some more! :-)
 
Published Friday, January 27, 2006 5:53 PM by Eileen_Brown
Filed Under: ,

Comments

Friday, January 27, 2006 1:45 PM by Blake Handler

# re: Exchange and Lotus Notes - interoperability and migration

Two more resources:

"Lotus Notes Application Analyser" if you're considering migrating from Lotus Notes, or if you want to do some housekeeping of your Notes environment.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=20e88f5d-b885-4ee0-8530-de12e96504b6&DisplayLang=en


KB912804 - How to migrate your Lotus Notes contacts to Outlook 2003.
http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?kbid=912804
Friday, January 27, 2006 2:55 PM by Nick Gillott

# re: Exchange and Lotus Notes - interoperability and migration

Let's see. The old Lotus vs Exchange chat. Quick show of hands please - what percentage of the email market is running on Lotus? (a few embarrassed hands raise tentatively) And Exchange? (piles of smug gits).

Another straw poll. How many people are doing or have done Notes to Exchange migrations? Loads. And how many doing Exchange to Notes migrations? Unenlightened companies during mergers.

Another straw poll. How many pieces of software allow you to connect or migrate from Exchange to Notes? Single figures. How many for connecting or migrating Notes to Exchange? Rather more.

Another straw poll. How many forum members for Notes? 11,000.
Exchange 5.5? 32,000.
Exchange 2000? 25,000.
Exchange 2003? 13,000.
(Source: Tek-Tips)

But there's just a little piece of me that says an argument between a man and a woman has an obvious winner.
Friday, January 27, 2006 3:58 PM by Christopher Byrne

# re: Exchange and Lotus Notes - interoperability and migration

ummm, Blake...in case you have been under a rock lately, you seem to have missed the MS was shamed into pulling the "Lotus Notes Application Analyser", because franky it was a pile of...

but enough there, I am still trying to figure out the point of this posting or the basis of Nick's comment. The messaging market grew 4% in 2005, yet IBM Lotus had 10% growth. So where are the migrations occuring? And what percentage is using Notes? try 120+ Million users...

Please don't add to the FUD that is out there lest you make the FUD roll.

And Eileen, it is replication, not sychronization (at least for now:-) ). But I forgot, Exchange has a single data store and does not know from replication, so I can understand your confusion...
Friday, January 27, 2006 7:24 PM by Bill Buchan

# re: Exchange and Lotus Notes - interoperability and migration

Very odd.

Clearly your husband uses Notes for internal company applications - and MS does NOT have tools (and wont have in the near future according to one "Red Bull" member I bumped into this week).

And yet, your proposing that they rip out their working Notes system - which quite reliably replicates over just about any line, is more secure, reliable, etc, and replace it with a creaking single-object store eMail system. cc:Mail with lipstick and rouge ?

Ah-ha.

Of course, thats the MS strategy. To Migrate peoples *Mail* from Notes to Exchange. Leaving behind the cost of running the Domino infrastructure to run their business apps on, because they cant migrate them.

Pop Quiz #1. Which one of the top ten UK clearing banks moved to Exchange years ago, but still have Domino servers ?

Oh. That'll be *all* the ones that moved to Exchange.

#2: Which consulting firm and great supporter of MS, told the world over five years ago that they were switching from Notes ? So why are they still creating new Notes ID's ?

So.

Lets simplfy and clarify this wee marketing message here.

If all you do is eMail, and your not too concerned about reliability, security, roadmap, clients, etc, and you think Exchange is "free", go Exchange. Oh - and you have to go Active Directory in terms of Enterprise authentication too.

Perhaps thats why 25% of folks out there in Exchange land run the unsupported v5.5 ? Or is it more ? After all it did justify the roadshow a few months ago. And lets not forget the "wake" that was held in london.

(Message for Nick above. Notes - according to Garner - has 46% of the market... Try taking the unsupported Exchange v5.5 users, and the unsupported Notes v4.6 users out of this equasion and see what the numbers are now ? Second thing- the *number* of migration tools is completely unrepresentative. Try not to let the emotion get in the way of a good argument, eh ?)

So.

Compete on delivered product. If you *can* migrate apps for users, show us it.

I'm intrigued how a multi-platform PKI infrastructure with seven-layer security supporting Lotusscript, Java, etc, can be wrestled onto the current MS "collaboration" platform - .net.. People far smarter than me have described this as "impossible".

Blogging fabrications like this to "tempt" customers to examine Notes->Exchange migrations, just for them to find out that they loose their applications is just bad practice, isnt it ?

I think the Garner report advice - "dont do migrations on emotional grounds - look at the Business benefit" is what *both* sides should be saying, dont you agree ?

Lets try and raise the level of the discussion from the MS end of the pitch above emotion and fabrication, shall we ?

Remember - from the stage @ lotusphere - "The gloves are off"...

----* Bill Buchan
http://www.billbuchan.com
Tuesday, January 31, 2006 4:01 PM by Steve Brown

# re: Exchange and Lotus Notes - interoperability and migration

Let me introduce myself. I am Steve Brown, Eileen’s husband. She said we had been arguing. In fact, she was fed up listening to my rants and exasperated cries from my home office.

Bill Buchan, I read your comments regarding Notes (although you could have been speaking Swahili to me).

Let me introduce you to my world, the outside world; the world of a user, a remote user; working from home, on an employer supplied PC and software, on a dial up connection. In the rarefied atmosphere of an office environment, I don’t doubt that, connected to a LAN, the transfer and replication of data should be seamless. However, my patience runs a little thin when my phone line is tied up for 2 hours or more whilst the address book replicates ….. and then the modem drops the line! I execute a simple Send / Receive and then am told that Notes is ‘cleaning up the database’. Why does this seem to involve all of the PCs effort? Thirty minutes later and after 2 cups of coffee, I’ve lost the will to live.  I struggle with the interface and the menu layout. I am used to, and use, MS Office products, so I naturally go for a ‘familiar’ menu drop down to reach a required function in Notes, only to find later that it is tucked away elsewhere.

The large majority of my colleagues are, at best, PC dabblers and, at worse, downright technophobes. To them, Domino is a pleasant game played in the corner of the local pub. Their tales of woe and frustration are sometimes amusing but generally annoying. To myself and my colleagues, Notes is a tool; no more, no less; much like a hammer, a 5/8 Whitworth spanner, an Ultrasonic thickness meter. Is it too much to ask that the tool is convenient, functional, usable?

If I take my gloves off, I'm likely to get cold hands whilst I'm waiting .... Steve

Friday, February 03, 2006 7:26 AM by Iain McCall

# re: Exchange and Lotus Notes - interoperability and migration

Bill,

Your comments on this blog entry and others pretty much demonstrates your affiliation with Lotus & IBM products. I have no problem with that, I am a big fan of Domino & Exchange, both have their merits and I have recommended both products to different companies in the past. At the end of the day, it's down to what the business requires and how they choose to deliver a solution.

If you feel this blog entry is a marketing message, then that's your opinion. This information is already out their on Microsoft's site. If Eileen wishes to make this readily available through a blog entry, then I thank her for that. Whether I use it is irrelevent.

I would imagine a lot of the people who read your comment on this blog are IT professionals who work with Microsoft technologies. Slating any person's blog entry regarding the technology they work with for no purpose but your own highlights the lack of professionalism on your part.

As for gloves, I'm more of a bare knuckle fighter.

Iain



Monday, February 06, 2006 8:46 PM by billbuchan

# re: Exchange and Lotus Notes - interoperability and migration

Steve. There are solutions available on Domino v6 to compress your address book updates to something like 2% of what your experiencing. Slap your domino admin over the head and say "mobile address book". It'll get better. Domino v6 has been out for ages - years. Its network compression -even over a totally unsuitable telephone line  - should make a difference.

You see, this is what I see a lot. A domino infrastructure that hasnt moved on since domino v4.0. Hell, its v7 now. Its a long way down the track.

So yes - you're experiencing Outlook 98 technology in 2006. And unsurprisingly it sucks. It can be made a lot lot better. For no risk, outlay, etc.


Iain. Interesting analogy.

"Is this blog a marketing message ?" Sometimes. You see MS folks and blogs are very much into the throwaway "MS is king, everything else is rubbish" line, and its wearing thin.

So when I see an MS technologist about to rip out a Notes infrastructure because its not outlook, I ask the relevant questions.

Such as my point about "can you migrate the inevitable notes applications" that you'll find there ? And the answer is usually a resounding "no". So the customer "migrates" his mailbox to exchange and still has to maintain a Domino infrastructure for his applications. How on earth can that benefit a customer ?  Why is two separate infrastructures better than one ? Where's the cost saving ?

Quite why you should come back with the "bare knuckle fighter" remark is a surprising leap from this to-and-fro technical discussion to something which might be a little darker.

Best we leave you alone from now on, eh ?

---* Bill
http://www.billbuchan.com
Tuesday, February 07, 2006 11:29 AM by Eileen_Brown

# re: Exchange and Lotus Notes - interoperability and migration

Bill,  I thought I'd explain my thoughts here.
1. I totally agree that each organisation must make a logical, business based decision as to what platform they should use for messaging and applications, and if a migration makes sense for either.

2.  For applications, many customers who moved to Exchange also decided that keeping their applications on Notes/Domino makes business sense today.  If you look at many large, established organizations, you can still find many legacy applications on mainframes and mid-range systems - essentially "if it isn't broken, then don't fix it" or simply that the cost justification to do a migration wasn't available at the time.   Each application has a lifecycle, and eventually applications get retired and replaced with new, better ones that meet the current business requirements and that are easier and less expensive to maintain, support etc.

The next question becomes where do organisations build their future applications (or do they simply buy off-the shelf applications?) -- this is the question that many Notes customers are facing.  For new applications, many Notes customers are looking at WebSphere, .Net and other platforms.  Several Notes customers are doing due diligence and evaluating Microsoft solutions, and are very interested in what migration tools are available, specifically to relational db stores so that they can get major benefits there.   Not all applications make business sense to migrate due to a multitude of reason, but for many, the value proposition of the new platform, includes the ability to use their current data on the new platform, whatever that new platform is.

As for you thinking I'm just delivering the marketing message, then you don't know me at all.  I work with our marketing team as a technical resource, and I work with individuals, customers, and partners.  Sure I get asked to publicise marketing messages, but I do so at my own discretion, when I think that these will be of benefit to other Exchange administrators.  Unlike you, however, I don't resort to disparaging comments about competitive technologies.  Everyone has their own choice to make.  And if you decide that what I say has no value to you, then you can make your own choice not to read my blog.
Eileen  

Friday, February 10, 2006 8:44 PM by Ewan

# re: Exchange and Lotus Notes - interoperability and migration

Ah, the old Notes vs Exhcange bunfight.

I did a lot of work with a large company which was taken over by another (smaller) company who happened to be on the acquisition path at the time. The first company was 'international' (ie they had major bases in different part of the world) and happened to use a well-designed Exchange infrastructure.

The second company was predominatly French, and used Notes. Even though they were half the size, the 2nd Co insisted that since they were doing the taking-over, by definition all their IT systems must be better than those of the firm they were absorbing. (Interesting logic, but in the cause of international relations, we'll let that pass).

This newly merged company started joining their sales orgs across the world, and in some locations had 2/3 of the sales force from Co 1 (Exchange users) and 1/3 of the folks from Co 2 (Notes users). The company line was that the Exchange people would move over to Notes at some stage.

What basically happened was that as soon as the remote offices started merging (ie 10 people from Co #2 would shut their office and move into the other office in the same town where Co #1 had 20 users), the Notes users from Co 2 demanded that they get the same system that their colleagues from Co 1 were already enjoying... and the whole migration strategy reversed to moving Notes users onto Exchange/Outlook.

Maybe the end user opinions as expressed in http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1705106,00.html is more powerful than a lot of blinkered IT people think. Give your users something *you* want, and they might accept it. But if they see something else which *they* want more, be prepared to shift your own opinion.

Ewan (self-admitted partisan of MSFT)
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