historical data after migration

Why did you restored data back to the mailbox for an Exchange migration? This is not needed at all.

You also said: "the downside to that is the user still has a shortcut to the email (which points to the new soruceone) in their mailbox"

Isn't this shortcut pointing to the old sourceone, which is gone?

Is the old SourceOne server deleted from your server park or just shut down?

Is the new sourceone server setup with only Exchange 2013 connectivity?

There are specific activities inside SourceOne to migrate PST's into the mailbox of the users.

There is no need to create new specific PST files for each user when using the above method.

Do the PST' hold shortcuts?

Since the link to the old storage/database is gone, I think it's all data loss...

If you import the emails from the pst files into a mailbox, then in theory, you should be able to just archive those emails from the mailbox, into SourceOne and the email should have the samme messageID as in the old SourceOne system, unless some sort of timestamp or the like changes the message date, size or other properties

And yes the approach of migration was done all wrong by the third party You had in to help, I'm sorry to say.

By doing an archiving from the mailbox as described, the ownership should also be set correctly for the emails in SourceOne.

Only people no longer in the company, changed smtp addresses and maybe distribution lists without the same members should change that part of the problem.

Regards

Thomas

The PST files are year based, not user based. So for instance, there are 30 PST files ranging in size from 1GB to 4GB for year 2010. Inside those are emails from and to everyone.  So what I have been working on is this.

Create a new database in Exchange.

Create a user called Archive2010

Import all PST files into this user (PST files contain the actual emails and no shortcuts)  These were exported right from SourceOne

Wrote a powershell that will scan the mailbox and create a PST based off of a username in the from and to field. So then I would have a PST for each user for that year.

Powershell against an affected user and remove all emails in their mailbox that is a shortcut

Then import that PST into the users mailbox.

It looks to be a slow process but the best that I can come up with. I am not a SourceOne trained person or an Exchange admin. We are a small shop but support about 1000 users.

Thanks again for your advice and input

Well we hired a third party to help with this process.  They said that according to EMC, that was the best way to go about it due to the version that we were running and what we were going to for SourceOne.  I never had training on SourceOne (due to budget) so that is why we listened to them.

So the process was this. They restored emails from SourceOne back to Exchange 2007 mailbox. Migrated mailboxes to Exchange 2013. The problem was that there were some errors during some people's restore and SourceOne skipped those mailboxes.  So nothing was restored and the old shortcut emails were left in the mailbox.  After the old SourceOne server was removed, a job was run to update all shortcuts to point to the new SourceOne server, even though those emails were actually never restored and shortcutted into the new SourceOne.  The olde server is completely gone. The Cellera storage unit that they were on is no longer there since we were also upgrading to a new VNX.  The way the drives were mapped (raw device mapping), they said that we couldn't move the SourceOne VM and drives over to the new VNX. So as we sit, there is no longer the old Exchange 2007 or the old SourceOne server. The new one only connects to Exchange 2013.  Our only saving grace is that they did export each year into PST files.  But some years contain 50 or 60 PST files.  I am currently creating a Exchange user for each year and importing in the PST files so that I can at least look at them for a year in one spot.  As of right now, I know of about 12 users that have reported not being able to access old email but it may be more. Some users may not have tried yet.  So that is the reason for this post. Just thought I would pick some brains to see if anyone had any thoughts on ways to handle this or is it just going to be a per person long process?  Thanks for the reply and any thoughts you may have.

You should archive them, not shortcut them into SourceOne.

Regards

Thomas

Hi Joe, I think You should do the following:

1. Import one of the pstfiles into a mailbox on exchange as You suggested.

2. Make an archive job against that mailbox in SourceOne - archive everything.

3. Find an email in that mailbox, locate the user/his mailbox and make a search for that email. If you find it, check to see if it's a shortcuttet email and then see if it can now be opened/resolved. (If offline access client is not installed attachments would have hdhjdj.pdf.html format - if OA installed go to the field column chooser in Outlook and add the column called "messageclass" this will show wether it's touched by SourceOne or not).

4. If it can be resolved, repeat step 1 and 2 for the rest of the pstfiles.

If you need further help or information let me know, then we could have a talk about the situation.

Best regards

Thomas

Thomas...so if I understand, I create these archive mailboxes for each year and import the PSTs into it. I then shortcut them into SourceOne and as long as the user with the same login tries to open a shortcut message, it will allow them to?  I will give that a try sinice I already have the years 2008, 2009, and 2010 archive users created. I am currently working on 2011, 2012, and 2013.  If that is the case, then this just got a lot easier.

Yeah I know I am partly to blame as well. I kept asking the third party to make sure what they were saying is what we wanted. I must not have been forceful enough in my pressure to make sure that it was right.  They just kept assuring me that they had talked to their contact at SourceOne and that was how it was supposed to go and that no emails would be lost.  Every day is a learning day and I learned a big lesson in this migration.  Thanks

Mails where person X or Y send/received it and will be covered by the way you describe it, will make it work I think (for the items that aren't shortcut in the PSTs)

It will see it as a new item and will process the Canonical Names which are identical? Otherwise you'll need to add them as a legacy address in Exchange 2013.

Thomas,

Thanks  I am out of the office today but will give this a try first thing in the morning and let you know what happens.  Thanks again for all the info.  I do have training coming up on SourceOne but not until September. 

Hi Joe, it is true, that the migration/shortcut of an pstfile will shortcut the items in the pstfile as Ben describes it.

There's a couple of reasons why You should still import the messages from the pstfiles into an exchange mailbox before doing anything with them with SourceOne:

1. The pstfiles are the only place at the moment where you have your originals, so do not tamper with them - keep them safe!

2. If you process the messages in the pstfiles, only the owner of the pstfile set in SourceOne will be marked as owner of the messages in the pstfiles, not the senter/recipients. So this will not solve your problem in the users mailboxes

3. Processing emails in pstfiles takes alot more time than doing it in a mailbox on exchange.

4. When imported to exchange mailbox, make a backup of the mailbox to secure the messages - pstfiles tent to get corrupted.

5. Archive the messages from the mailbox instead of shortcutting is faster, since it is a one step process compared to shortcutting which has more steps in it.

Important Note before You start:

If you want to be sure to get the correct owners on all the messages you should actually run a journaling activity against the mailbox where you import the pstfiles to, NOT an archive activity. And the mapped folder where you journal to, should be an "Organizational folder". But the mapped folder type ultimately depends upon your compliancy situation.

Best Regards

Thomas

When using the PST Migrate function inside SourceOne, it will automatically shortcut the items.

Joe8313, if you require any help directly from a thirth partner, you can always contact us (information on www.panoptic.biz )

Hi Joe, I agree with Ben's answer below.

Regards

thomas

Thomas,

Thank you. Quick question...if the email already exists in SourceOne, will it duplicate it in storage or is it smart enough to know that and not store it twice?

If you mean 'in storage' is the SourceOne Back-end archive: SourceOne creates a hash which is identical for a mail when it's archived today or 10 years ago (as long as it is the same mail). This causes the mail to be stored once inside the DB/Backend.