DYS Analytics, whose products and services manage today's top enterprise messaging platforms, will define the key success factors for corporate email migrations during a panel discussion at next week's <A HREF="http://www.dysanalytics.com/news_email_migration.php">INBOX: The Messaging Industry Event.</A> Using five case studies as examples, DYS will outline the top considerations necessary for consolidation success--and provide a cheat sheet for enterprises that are planning email platform changes.

With the recent debut of Microsoft Server 2007 and upcoming Lotus Notes and Domino 8, many enterprises are considering email upgrades and migrations, which naturally triggers them to evaluate the merits of server consolidation. Such moves can either be brilliant cost-savers, or flops that leave users with poor email/IM performance and invoke the ire of everyone including management. While server consolidations can improve efficiency and cost-savings, they also can dramatically increase WAN network traffic and demands on the consolidated servers. In general, platform vendors' load estimators only offer generic answers which often greatly miscalculate WAN traffic and server storage/routing requirements.

This instructional session details recent Microsoft Exchange and IBM Notes Domino migrations, including their approach to up-front capacity planning, pre-migration cleanup, the placement of users on specific servers, and overall time to completion. Using the experience of these major firms, the talk reviews the two main approaches to consolidations, and the pros and cons of each. The session concludes by providing attendees with concrete steps on how to best plan, implement and validate the success of an email migration or upgrade project.