Computing Research: Microsoft Exchange - the great migration
The path to becoming an Exchange 2010 user can be arduous, but it is a journey more and more enterprises are willing to make
Like moving to a bigger house, migrating to a new version of Exchange, Microsoft's enterprise collaboration and email package, is a complex and time-consuming activity, requiring significant forward planning, testing and manpower. Since the software is not backwards-compatible with previous versions, a piecemeal implementation is impossible. An Exchange installation tends to be an all-or-nothing venture and, for this reason, many IT leaders need some convincing to make the change.
For any users of Exchange 2003, for example, the push may take the form of Microsoft's withdrawal of support in less than two years' time. For others, migration may be scheduled to coincide with their hardware upgrade cycle, or prompted by a change in the structure of the organisation itself, or its business processes.
A change of outlook
The official release date for the next version of Exchange - Exchange 15 - will be announced at the Microsoft Exchange Conference (MEC) in September, although it is widely expected that the milestone will be reached in early 2013.
While it remains to be seen what the new iteration will offer, history suggests that whatever the advances in functionality may be, there will be no rush to adopt by UK enterprise. This was evidenced by Computing research into the uptake of Exchange 2010.
Computing conducted two readership surveys roughly 18 months apart. The first poll, conducted in July 2010, found that a mere eight per cent of the Exchange installed base was Exchange 2010 (released in 2009), with the remainder represented by earlier versions. By February 2012 the share commanded by Exchange 2010 had grown to 42 per cent of those firms using the application (figure 1). This represented a healthy increase and a significant percentage, of course, but still a minority of users.
Computing Research: Microsoft Exchange - the great migration
The path to becoming an Exchange 2010 user can be arduous, but it is a journey more and more enterprises are willing to make
Only one per cent of respondents were found to be moving away from Exchange, suggesting that those who start on Exchange have been staying on Exchange – thus far on the journey, at least. Whether these users may begin to consider cloud-based platforms, such as Huddle, will become apparent in the run-up to 2013.
For now, a majority of Exchange users remain wedded to the 2003 and 2007 versions. A core of 2007 users is likely to remain on that platform, seeing little need to upgrade, whereas others will wait for the arrival of Exchange 15 before moving. But many of the 58 per cent of Exchange users that are not yet on 2010 are now en route to upgrading to what is – numerous bug fixes and service packs later – a stable and mature platform.
In terms of drivers for the upgrade, the carrot is proving to be more effective than the stick. Only 33 per cent said their hand was being forced by the impending withdrawal of support for Exchange 2003. Thirty-seven per cent mentioned a server upgrade being the impetus behind the move, while 65 per cent cited the improved functionality on offer.
Compared with previous versions, Exchange 2010 allows for larger mailboxes, more granular controls, support for virtualisation, improved availability and continuity, and the Outlook 2010 client, as well as the option to use a hybrid, cloud-based Office 365/Exchange system. But in return for all these functional enhancements, Exchange 2010 demands up-to-date hardware and software.
Waiting at the station
As we have seen, figure 1 reveals the long delay between release and mass uptake. This timelag can be explained by the scale of the undertaking and the frequency of the hardware refresh cycle (three to four years on average) to which an Exchange upgrade is so often tied.
Because it requires 64-bit hardware and Windows 2008 R2 (absent in the majority
of firms surveyed in 2010), this migration represents much more than a simple software upgrade. Compared to legacy versions, Exchange 2010 is a different beast with a whole new architecture and some major changes under the skin.
Whereas in previous versions only Outlook Web Access (OWA) connections went through the Client Access Server (CAS), Exchange 2010 routes all traffic through these nodes. As well as extra machines, provision for additional storage and memory will be required in many cases to manage the load (figure 2).
Computing Research: Microsoft Exchange - the great migration
The path to becoming an Exchange 2010 user can be arduous, but it is a journey more and more enterprises are willing to make
Considering that our surveys gave Microsoft Exchange a combined share of more than 80 per cent of the enterprise groupware market (Lotus Notes/Domino, the nearest competitor, could only muster single figures) migration to a new version of Exchange can be seen as an important driver of enterprise technology as a whole, simply by dint of the numbers involved.
Moving on up
The main reasons that many firms delay moving to a new version of Exchange are cost (36 per cent) and fear of disruption to end users (27 per cent).
In a mid-to-large organisation, huge volumes – quite possibly terabytes – of data need to be migrated to the new mailbox servers during the upgrade.
With a typical mailbox weighing in at 500MB (according to the 2012 survey) and taking around 30 minutes to migrate, plenty of time needs to be allowed for the migration to be completed. For the whole process to take more than one month is not uncommon (figure 3).
Given the pivotal importance of email, minimising any downtime is a vital consideration. Many respondents did report teething problems, however. Thirty-four per cent said that in the early stages email performance was degraded, although in almost all cases this was short lived (figure 4).
Most of the issues reported revolved around difficulties in planning the migration in a way that caused the minimum of disruption, and in compatibility with earlier versions while mailboxes and databases are migrated from one to the other. We will be looking at the practical dimensions of migrating to a new version of Exchange in the next print issue of Computing, out on 19 July.