pmooney.net

1 - Simon - this is a very common Microsoft Exchange migration scenario. I know of a number of large accounts who were promised that their apps would move - and of course they didnt. Once exchange was installed, MS lost interest..

---* Bill

2 - Upgrade to ND7 PJ........ you get a lot more for a lot less

3 - Paul,

Thanks. Redmond is great by the way. Learned a lot and good intercation with the client I am visiting with.

I wasn't shouting at you by the way, the WRONG was intended to articlulate my frustration that there are still people within Microsft aparently who don't get it completely ...

4 - Paul,

You make some fair points and unfortunalty also draw some early conclusions

1. The person that indicated that how easy it is to migrate is WRONG.
He/she did not recognise the fact that migration is just one of the options and a clear understanding of the application environment, its use and value to the organsiation, etc are also aspects that come into play in these types of discussion. I've seen organisations build a complete ERP solution in Domino, that's not a rip and replace effort. There is no rip and replace approach intended / possible nor should this be articulated by anyone Microsoft or other is my opinion.
Needless to say that applications are not THE reason for migration there are a lot of different reasons to consider a transition of off Notes Domino. Application migration is an effect of this and a very important one.

2. The Application Analyzer Suite
Yes there's more than 1 tool ... When you read the information at this page (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=d94c5719-570d-4adb-b449-70e1e42cbfc5&displaylang=en) you see there are 2 :
"The Application Analyzer consists of two parts: the Data Collector and the Data Processor. The Data Processor interprets the data from the Data Collector and creates detailed reports that indicate the complexity and scale of the application and recommendations on how to most efficiently migrate applications to Microsoft platform application environment. The tool is used in the pre-sales and sales phases and is the foundation for an implementation plan."

The tool you've used is available to end-users and only provides some reports that could be interpreted in a wrong way. It is intended to give a highlevel overview.
The reason a Microosft partner or Microsoft Consulting Services should be be involved is the fact that they have access to the Data Processor, the detailled analyzer and reporting tool really going into detail of all design elements of an application and this really allows for detailled analysis. You have not used this tool according to your blogpost.

Please also don't forget these tools are to be used in the process of considering a transition off of the Notes / Domino platform and are therefor part of an overall approach. It still takes people with knowledge of the applications ("a fool with a tool is still a fool").

What I would like to ask in return in return is what tools IBM provides or any other third Party arround applications to support NOtes / Domino users to determine the impact of making changes to their infrastructure (consolidation of servers / migration to other application platforms whatever).


(Check out all migration tools here: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/interopmigration/collaboration/default.mspx )

5 - Looked at sharepoint once, was told that it could easily display domino databases. Yup , if you are willing to do individual field level mapping for all those applications. I stopped at that, as it was clear it was not viable from a business perspective, nor was I enough of a glutton for punishment to even see if it worked after I had individually mapped all the fields

6 - The funny part in all of this. is that I too ran the tool like yourself and found it to be less than useful. We were instructed by my management to work with MS. MS then wanted to sell us a service that would take the output of the Collector to help us decide to move to MS!

That statement really didn't go well. At the end of the day, the full tool output told us that we have many thousands of applications, of which many will not simply migrate and will need to be rebuilt from scratch. Ultimately, the scope of the migration justification is now totally focussed around email (because of cost), and we will end up running Domino apps for the forseeable future and try to tack them into the Exchange world where necessary.

Fun times ahead!

7 - Now Peter
You are not SHOUTING at me on my own little site now are you?
How is Redmond btw? I see you were over there last week.

You too make some fair points and also draw some early conclusions.
The person was wrong.. but he was an MS person (no names) and I wanted to highlight the fact that this was wrong, and I think that my effort was successful.
There are reasons to consider migrating from Domino. There are also many reasons to consider migrating off MS solutions, including Exchange, Portal, SQL etc. But again, I always have an open mind (which you should know from other posts I have made) and I wanted to look at the tool that the person was harping on about.
I am well aware that there are two parts to this tool. Considering I am an MSCE and work for a Gold MS partner site, I will be looking at the Data processor and evaluating that aswell. My point was that the tool was honest. It is difficult to migrate the apps, becuase the functionality that is core to the majority of Domino apps is just not readily easy to the MS suite.
"a fool with a tool is still a fool". Agreed. An IT literate monkey could give better information then what is in the summary report. But I was not expecting any more from it. Just don't try to chuck out FUD using this tool (and yes, even this summary report) as a weapon.
In return, there are plenty of consolidation tools and impact analysis tools for anyone considering infrastructure change, including application, infrastructure and even network traffic level. As for migration to other platforms, IBM are not going to give information on how to migrate out of Domino, unless its to Eclipse/Websphere solutions. Tell me, does MS give information on how to migrate to other application platforms?? I will get some links and post them here for you.

8 - It wouldn't of.....

9 - This is great! I just spoke with an admin friend of mine who's IT management just contracted an Exchange migration from ND5. He said they came in and ran this tool and had come back "in a few weeks" to publish a report. Funny thing is they have over 200 apps, with backend integration. Heh, I told him that he and I will be having the same conversation a year from now. The M$ guys must be scientologists.

10 - Paul,
<br>
<br>You make some fair points and unfortunalty also draw some early conclusions
<br>
<br>1. The person that indicated that how easy it is to migrate is WRONG.
<br>He/she did not recognise the fact that migration is just one of the options and a clear understanding of the application environment, its use and value to the organsiation, etc are also aspects that come into play in these types of discussion. I've seen organisations build a complete ERP solution in Domino, that's not a rip and replace effort. There is no rip and replace approach intended / possible nor should this be articulated by anyone Microsoft or other is my opinion.
<br>Needless to say that applications are not THE reason for migration there are a lot of different reasons to consider a transition of off Notes Domino. Application migration is an effect of this and a very important one.
<br>
<br>2. The Application Analyzer Suite
<br>Yes there's more than 1 tool ... When you read the information at this page (<a href="http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=d94c5719-570d-4adb-b449-70e1e42cbfc5&amp;displaylang=en)" rel="nofollow">http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=d94c5719-570d-4adb-b449-70e1e42cbfc5&amp;displaylang=en)</a> you see there are 2 :
<br>"The Application Analyzer consists of two parts: the Data Collector and the Data Processor. The Data Processor interprets the data from the Data Collector and creates detailed reports that indicate the complexity and scale of the application and recommendations on how to most efficiently migrate applications to Microsoft platform application environment. The tool is used in the pre-sales and sales phases and is the foundation for an implementation plan."
<br>
<br>The tool you've used is available to end-users and only provides some reports that could be interpreted in a wrong way. It is intended to give a highlevel overview.
<br>The reason a Microosft partner or Microsoft Consulting Services should be be involved is the fact that they have access to the Data Processor, the detailled analyzer and reporting tool really going into detail of all design elements of an application and this really allows for detailled analysis. You have not used this tool according to your blogpost.
<br>
<br>Please also don't forget these tools are to be used in the process of considering a transition off of the Notes / Domino platform and are therefor part of an overall approach. It still takes people with knowledge of the applications ("a fool with a tool is still a fool").
<br>
<br>What I would like to ask in return in return is what tools IBM provides or any other third Party arround applications to support NOtes / Domino users to determine the impact of making changes to their infrastructure (consolidation of servers / migration to other application platforms whatever).
<br>
<br>
<br>(Check out all migration tools here: <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/technet/interopmigration/collaboration/default.mspx" rel="nofollow">http://www.microsoft.com/technet/interopmigration/collaboration/default.mspx</a> )

11 - I think what you all are missing is that the MS tool does a nice job in giving you an understanding of what you have but is in no way a tool that tells you exactly what to do. that level of analysis is best served bya 3rd party that knows that they are doing. We tried it ourselves and opted for 3rd party opinion. best thing we did. Another thing we realized is that we got sloppy over time and started building apps in Domino because it was too easy. We are feeling the pain now because the future is not that platform....so for all those that are putting MS down (and believe me, I'm not a true fan as well), but think about it..does Lotus have tools to convert from MS? No, because they are wilting away..wait until their next versions where it will cost you a fortune to upgrade....we're not waiting