Quest & Symantec EV Exchange Migrations

Overview

When migrating Exchange mailbox from source to target whereby Symantec EV is connected to archiving the source mailboxes, by default after migration, when Symantec EV is re-directed to the newly migrated Exchange mailboxes in the target, it will create new and duplicate archives within the EV database. The root cause of this is because the EV procedure for recognizing mailboxes is dependent upon the msExchmailboxguid and the legacyExchangeDN Active Directory attributes. Quest do not migrate these attributes, because to do so would be incorrect, because Exchange should be assigning these unique key attributes automatically. Microsoft advise against doing this, therefore Quest follow these standards in full.

Resolving the problem

The solution is easier that what has been documented in the past. The following topics are the key to this process.

Symantec EV Policy Manager (EVPM)

EVPM is a side tool for the EV product which is a scripting method for modifying and controlling EV archives. A unique guide for this is available and shipped with the product, called the ‘Utilities’ documentation PDF. In order solve this problem, it is required to  re-enable all mailboxes that have been migrated in the target for archiving will mean that upon examining the newly migrated unique mailboxes in the target Exchange, it will see the Archive ID values and therefore realise this mailbox is now the newly migrated mailbox and map the two together in the database, resulting in one correct archive. Please note that this process is a trivial task and is not something to be seem as a long drawn out process.

Hidden ArchiveID MAPI property

This is a hidden message and is stored within each message. It is used by EV to identify messages which has been archived. When Quest migrates each message, we automatically bring over these properties so there is zero configuration changes requires for the Quest tool.

What is the EV procedure for migrations?

This is documented by Symantec at the following location:

http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/284956.htm

 

It is highly suggested that the following document should also be read from Symantec. It includes a scenario and procedure for the workings and configuration of EV:

http://www.symantec.com/connect/sites/default/files/managing-exchange-migrations-with-symantec-ev.pdf

How do I re-enable a mailbox?

Please note that the following snippet is taken from the Symantec EV Utilities Guide as an example. Mailboxes can either be enabled in bulk mode of individually. The bulk method is described further below.

 

;

; Enabling a mailbox

;

[Directory]

DirectoryComputerName= myserver

SiteName = MattSite

[Mailbox]

DistinguishedName = /o=Org1/ou=Admin Group/cn=Recipients/cn=jones

[Folder]

Name = mailboxroot

Enabled = true

;

; End

 

How do I bulk-script the re-enable mailbox procedure?

The bulk method can be done by either, enabling all users, running the script below against a batch set of specific users, or running against AD with a group or an LDAP query against an OU, for example. You can re-enable all users’ if you wish, depending upon your migration scenario. LDAP queries are done using the ‘LDAPQuery’ function of the EVPM tool, documented fully within the Utilities Guide PDF. The script below works by providing a bulk import file of distinguishedname attribute values for all of the target users you wish to update. Example contents of the input file would therefore be:

 

…………………………………………………………

 

CN=admin,OU=Users,DC=mattdamon,DC=com

CN=JohnDoe,OU=Users,DC=mattdamon,DC=com

CN=BruceWillis,OU=users,DC=mattdamon,DC=com

…………………………………………………………

 

The example vbs script would therefore be:

 

Const ForReading = 1

Const ForWriting = 2

Const OpenAsUnicode = -1

Const OverwriteIfExist = -1

 

Dim objFSO

Dim objShell, evpm

 

evpm = “c:\program files\enterprise vault\evpm.exe”

Set objFSO = CreateObject(”Scripting.FileSystemObject”)

 

Set objInputFile = objFSO.OpenTextFile(”C:\temp\input.txt”, ForReading)

Do Until objInputFile.AtEndOfStream

Set objOutputFile = objFSO.CreateTextFile(”C:\temp\evpm.ini”, OverwriteIfExist, OpenAsUnicode)

strLine = objInputFile.ReadLine

 

objOutputFile.WriteLine “[Directory]”

objOutputFile.WriteLine “directorycomputername = myserver”

objOutputFile.WriteLine “sitename = ExampleSite”

 

objOutputFile.WriteLine “[Mailbox]”

objOutputFile.WriteLine “distinguishedname = ” & strLine

 

objOutputFile.WriteLine “[Folder]”

objOutputFile.WriteLine “name = mailboxroot”

objOutputFile.WriteLine “Enabled = True”

 

set objShell = wscript.createObject(”wscript.shell”)

strExec = evpm & ” -e <exchange> -m <alias> -f c:\temp\evpm.ini”

 

objShell.Run strExec

objOutputFile.Close

Loop

objInputFile.Close

 

If you wish to script using an LDAP query then the following would be done. In this example it would enable all mailboxes with the extensionattribute1 attribute set with a value of 1.:

 

[Directory]

DirectoryComputerName= myserver

SiteName = ExampleSite

[Mailbox]

LDAPquery = extensionAttribute1 = 1

 [Folder]

Name = mailboxroot

Enabled = true

;

; End

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