What’s new in the HMC 4.0 Migration Toolkit?

What is the HMC 4.0 (Hosted Messaging & Collaboration) migration kit?

In this blog post I will briefly go through the HMC & its migration kit. Hosted Messaging and Collaboration 4.0 is a Microsoft solution kit which is comprised of a set of tools, proven best practices, scripts, and sample code snippets designed to effectively deploy Messaging and Collaboration services on multi-tenant servers in an Exchange Hosting Provider environment.

Earlier this month, Microsoft released the HMC 4.0 Migration toolkit. The below figure shows the folder information inside the HMC 4.0 migration kit file.

As you see above, this migration kit is comprised of a set of tools and white papers which assist hosters in migrating Microsoft Solutions for Hosted Messaging and Collaboration version 4.0 from previous Hosted Messaging and Collaboration version 3.5. The key phases in HMC 4.0 migration are:

  1. To upgrade Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 to Microsoft Exchange 2007
  2. To upgrade Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services version 2.0 to Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services version 3.0.
  3. To provision data migration from Hosted Messaging and Collaboration version 3.5 Microsoft Provisioning System (MPS) to Hosted Messaging and Collaboration version 4.0 MPS.

Key things to note!

  1. If you have an old version of HMC, ensure you upgrade to HMC 3.5 before you start migrating to HMC 4.0.
  2. If you have LCS (Live Communication Server) enabled users, do not migrate to HMC 4.0. Wait for next version of HMC (I guess HMC 4.5), as it includes OCS 2007.

Type of Migrations

  • In-place (Coexistence) – Here the new Exchange 2007 & HMC 4.0 are installed in the same Active Directory Domain as Exchange 2003 & HMC 3.5
  • Side-by-side – here Exchange 2007 & HMC 4.0 are installed in a fresh Active Directory Domain (different forest) and replicate the data/object between the two forests.

In the both migration scenarios, the hoster will go through the following steps:

  1. Deploy new Servers for Exchange 2007 and HMC 4.0 MPS
  2. Install the Import Namespaces
  3. Run the Deployment Tool Migration Utility
  4. Deploy the HMC 4.0 MPS Engine server and Provisioning Web Services server
  5. Deploy new HMC 4.0 Control Panel
  6. Deploy Exchange 2007 servers
  7. Deploy Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 servers
  8. Import Resellers, Customer Organizations and Accounts (both admin & user accounts) into HMC 4.0 MPS
  9. Migrate Exchange Objects (Move mailboxes, public folders, offline address books to Exchange 2007)
  10. Import Exchange information to HMC 4.0 MPS (Resource Manager and Plans Database)
  11. Migrate SharePoint Site content from WSS 2.0 to WSS 3.0
  12. Import SharePoint site assignments to HMC 4.0 MPS
  13. Migrate Exchange Mobility and CDI information (if any)
  14. De-allocate users and organizations from HMC 3.5 MPS

In a nutshell, to perform this type of migration the hoster should have amble hands-on and in depth knowledge with HMC and this Migration kit is real core tool for them.

About The Author

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Scroll to Top