Moving mailboxes from Exchange 2010 organization to Exchange 2013 organization – Part 2

 

After you enabled Mailbox Replication Proxy service on the source Exchange Server, it is a good idea to test its functionality. You can easily do it by executing Test-MRSHealth cmdlet. Make sure that you have value True in each Passed row, for each test, and you’re good to go.

Before actually moving a mailbox, you should prepare it for moving. Actually, you have to migrate a user object first and prepare mailbox move request. Luckily, Microsoft has provided a script for this. Steps for preparing an object move are as follows:

1.       Open Exchange Management Shell on the destination CAS server and change the path to “C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\v15\scripts”

2.       Type, $Local = Get-Credential and press Enter. When prompted, provide admin credentials for new (destination) organization. That is the org to which you move the mailbox.

3.       Type $Remote= Get-Credential and provide credentials for source organization. By executing these steps we are actually storing credentials for administrators in both organizations. These credentials are used by the script in the next step.

4.      Type:

.\Prepare-MoveRequest.Ps1 -Identity “User UPN” -RemoteForestDomainController FQDN_OF_SourceDC -RemoteForestCredential $Remote -LocalForestDomainController FQDN_OF_LocalDC -LocalForestCredential $Local -TargetMailUserOU "OU=OUNAme,dc=domain,dc=extension"  – you should fill italic text with your own values
(example : .\Prepare-MoveRequest.Ps1 -Identity Damir@dizdarevic.ba -RemoteForestDomainController dc-srv-01.dizdarevic.ba -RemoteForestCredential $Remote -LocalForestDomainController dc-srv-01.dizdarevic.local -LocalForestCredential $Local -TargetMailUserOU "OU=IT,dc=dizdarevic,dc=local" )

5.       After you execute this PS script you should get the reply : 1 mailbox(es) ready to move

Now, if you open Active Directory Users&Computers in destination domain, you should find user object created (and disabled, since we didn’t move password). If the object is there, we are ready to move the mailbox. We will do it in Exchange Admin Center in Exchange Server 2013.

So, open EAC and perform following:

Click recipients and then click the migration tab. Click New and choose Move to this forest option. In a wizard, click Add and select the user that you just moved. Actually, here you will see only users that are moved using procedure described earlier. Enter credentials for remote/source forest and confirm the name of migration endpoint – that is FQDN of the server where you enabled MRS Proxy service. After that choose the destination database for the mailbox and confirm the admin credentials. Start the migration batch. After that wait for a few minutes until status of user object becomes Synced. Then click Complete this migration batch and wait until the status of the object becomes Completed. And, you’re done!

After mailbox is migrated, all you have to do is to set the password on the moved user account and to enable that account. After that, user can login in the new forest, and will have its mailbox content moved.

So, as you can see, the process is not simple, but it can be done if you carefully follow the steps I provided. If you have troubles, let me know – maybe I can help.