As far as Lotus Notes is concerned, Google provides a tool named Google Apps Migration for Lotus Notes (GAMLN for short).
This tool is exclusively intended for administrators and has no equivalent on the user side, as is the case for the Exchange environment.
The GAMLN is a native IBM application that installs only on the IBM Lotus Notes Domino server in a Microsoft Windows environment.
The main features of GAMLN are:
The migration of everything else in Notes is currently not supported.
There are some prerequisites for using this tool:
- The version of IBM Lotus Domino Server should be 6.02 or later
- The provisioning API should be activated in the Google Apps console
- The Notes client should be installed and running with administrator privileges
- The installation of Microsoft Core XML Services 6.0 is required when using ServerXMLHttp to upload data to Google
Installing GAMLN requires the creation of a Lotus Notes database, known as the administration base, entirely dedicated to the migration. The creation of the database starts by using the template provided by Google (gmail-migration.ntf). It contains the set of parameters that need to be defined for the migration. The configuration of a site, associated with the database, is required too.
The next step is the definition of the Access Control List (ACL), which defines the administrator rights at the global level, the site administrators, and so on.
The "general" tab in the configuration screen of the administration base
Before launching the migration process, the users should be chosen, whether the migration will take place user by user or by batch. This selection is made directly within the administration database. At this stage, you should define which pieces of data are to be migrated: messages and folders (including junk mail), calendars, contacts, and groups. Archived mail can be included, too.
One interesting peculiarity of GAMLN is the possibility to launch the migration by invitation. If this option is chosen, users get a message that invites each of them to launch the migration process by simply clicking on a link in the mail. This has the advantage that each user can freely start the migration at the most appropriate time. For some types of users, this could be useful. This method can also be mixed with the usual method which performs the migration by batch. One other advantage to letting users decide when they want to migrate is that it reduces traffic on the existing mail server.
Sending multiple migration invitations
The general principle is to use a temporary database in which the format conversions take place: conversion to MIME, then to XML, and so on. It might be useful to know that Google provides a GAMLN API for interacting with the Feeder Database.
How GAMLN works