Migration Step Nine: Check the health of Exchange

c  Optimize Exchange Server and mailboxes. Follow the instructions on pages 16 through 17 in the Microsoft migration document.

c  Empty the Deleted Items folder.

c  Archive older mail

It can take a long time to migrate large Exchange Server mailboxes. It will take less time if you reduce the size of the mailboxes before the migration. To help reduce the size of the mailboxes, ask each of the users to do the following:

·      Empty the Deleted Items folder

·      Archive older mail

For additional information about optimizing Exchange Server, see the Exchange Best Practices Analyzer at the Microsoft Web site (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=101795).

To empty the Deleted Items folder

1.   In the Microsoft Office Outlook® messaging client, click Tools in the toolbar, and then click Empty "Deleted Items" Folder.

2.   Click Yes on the warning dialog box.

To archive older mail

1.   In Outlook, click File in the toolbar, and then click Archive.

2.   In the Archive dialog box, click the down arrow in the Archive items older than text box.

Note

You must tell the users what date to select in the calendar that appears.

3.   If you want to make sure that all the older mail is included, select the Include items with "do not AutoArchive" checked check box.

4.   Click Archive all folders according to the AutoArchive settings at the top of the dialog box.

5.   Click OK.

In Windows XP, the older mail is moved to the archive.pst file in C:\Documents and Settings\<user name>\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook folder.

In the Windows Vista® operating system, the older mail is moved to the archive.pst file in C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook folder.

Well since this is my test run, I will suck this up and not do this step, but in the real migration about a week before the real migration, I'm going to remind folks of the tasks they should have been doing all along...that is keeping their mailboxes clean.

Now Amy Babinchak and Philip Elder recommend to defrag the exchange databases:

The following can be done to test the health of the Exchange databases at the command prompt and with the stores dismounted (remember to backup):

So here's what I'm going to do:

  1. In Exchange System Manager, right-click the information store that you want to defragment, and then click Dismount Store.

Now that the databases are stopped you can make a copy of these files (just in case)

In my case I have these on another drive, you may see these on your C: drive.

 

  1. At the command prompt, change to the Exchsrvr\Bin folder, and then type the eseutil /d command, a database switch, and any options that you want to use.

 This will take some time.

And then it will indicate it's done.



And don't forgot at the end to go remount the store

Read the complete post at http://msmvps.com/blogs/bradley/archive/2009/11/07/migration-step-nine-check-the-health-of-exchange.aspx

Published Sun, Nov 8 2009 0:02 by THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS "DIVA"
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