As announced on Microsoft’s blog, Exchange 2010 is close to the tip of its lifecycle. In about only 14 months from now, on January 14, 2020, Exchange 2010 will stop being supported. Although the end of the lifecycle does not mean that your Exchange Server 2010 will stop working, it is recommended to start planning the migration to a newer version of Exchange – preferably to Exchange 2019, that has already been formally discharged in October this year.
Why is it time to leave Exchange 2010?
The main reason is that you just won’t be ready to maintain the server up to date. Once Exchange 2010 environment reaches the end of its lifecycle, it will no longer get security updates, bug fixes and technical support from Microsoft team. This should sound to you like a good reason to start planning your migration to a newer version of Exchange, ideally to Exchange 2019, that is presently the youngest Exchange edition available.
Why Exchange 2019?
Although Microsoft continues its cloud-only strategy, there are still companies which prefer or need to stay on-premises. The reasons for that are mainly security regulations obligating companies to store business data locally. So, if you intend to migrate to a more recent version of Exchange, it is worth considering moving to the most recent (the youngest) on the market. Exchange 2019 is at the very beginning of its lifecycle, which is vital from the support and maintenance perspective. And as announced on Microsoft Ignite 2018, this is claimed to be the most reliable Exchange deployment version ever.
Having this in mind, I will show you how to perform the migrating to Exchange 2016 then migration to Exchange 2019 using LG Networks Exchange Migration.
Note: If you look for a way to migrate mailboxes to Office 365, see my other article on migration from Exchange 2010 to Office 365.
Why choose LG Networks Exchange Migration over native migration path?
Well, you will be able to go together with native choices once migrating from Exchange 2010 upgraded to Exchange 2019. This will require a double-hop migration (Exchange 2010 and Exchange 2019 can’t coexist in the same forest, so you need to move Exchange 2010 to 2016 migration first), some time and scripting knowledge. Though it consumes resources like e.g. above-mentioned time, it costs no money. However, as I would like to indicate you the method for quick and painless migration, I will be able to target employing a third-party tool here. Except for simplicity and speed factors, you may want to go with LG Networks Exchange Migration also for other reasons like:
- Direct migration to Exchange 2019 (no double-hop);
- Option for planning migration ahead, and be sure that your migration tasks will automatically start and stop once proper time comes;
- Zero downtime during mailbox migration;
- Automatic creation of users’ accounts and mailboxes on the target server;
- Auto matching source and target mailboxes.
And the list does not end here. If you want to see more benefits, follow this link.
How to migrate to Exchange 2019 using LG Networks Migration tool?
It may sound a bit “salesy”, but the fact is that the migration with LG Networks Exchange Migration 2010 to 2019 can prevent plenty of your time and energy. Below you can find a brief overview of how to set up the software and a migration job.
- In the Administration Panel of the program in the Jobs tab, click the New button and then Migration job from Exchange Server.
- Name your migration job.
- Connect the program to the source server via the easy-to-follow connection wizard.
- Once the program connects to the source server, select mailboxes for migration.
- Then, set up the target server connection by following the wizard.
- Match source and target mailboxes. You can do it manually or let the program match mailboxes automatically through the Outlook clients.
- If you want to run the migration job at a different time e.g. on weekend, you can enable scheduler to activate or stop the job automatically.
- Choose which folders should be migrated.
- Run the migration job and watch how the magic happens.
Once the migration process is finished, you can generate a report which summarizes the migration process. There are available overall, job and mailbox reports. Here is an example of the job report:
See also: