Sumatra Development LLC

The hard part in moving from GroupWise to Microsoft Exchange is getting all your crucial scheduling data out of GroupWise and into Exchange in one operation. For years this has been impossible. Microsoft has not tested its migration wizards on GroupWise 6 (see KB articles 329041, 303861).

Who is this for?  If you have under 500 users and are happy with the Microsoft migration tools -- this is not for you.  If you have over 500 users, scheduling is one of your mission-critical apps, and getting all of your responses, guest lists, and other calendar information as seamlessly as possible into Exchange, THEN this is for you.

We have developed the fast, reliable technology that allows you to preserve all of your meetings, activities, and mission-critical scheduling information. We can convert multiple post offices, as well as map your user IDs before moving to Exchange.

While some migration solutions work by moving many users at the client level, ours works by porting a GroupWise server directly into an Exchange 2000/2003 server. 

Does it work?  Yes. It's a custom, database-driven solution we've developed that gives you choice all along the way.  Compatible with GroupWise 5.x and 6.x (where it runs as a Trusted App).  If you want to move to Exchange and take all your scheduling information along, contact us to arrange to see how.

What are your alternatives?  We often see companies run side-by-side for a week and require users to type their own meetings back in.  Some users have used Pilots to download their calendars and upload them to Outlook/Exchange.  They lost all live meeting information (attendees, attendee status, etc) and all recurring meetings were turned into multiple instances of single meetings.  They also lived through what is often called "conference room anarchy."  Our solutions avoid these serious problems. 

How does this work?  In two phases.  Phase I involves extracting the GroupWise scheduling data and putting it into a useful RDBMS form (documentation is here).   You can download the application that does this here.  You send us the resulting file and we convert it into a final database which you take to Phase II.   Phase II  takes our database and imports it into Exchange. Our Exchange insertion code uses the Exchange CDO interface, to guarantee maximum conversion reliability and integrity. 

Also, while your migration is going on we are tracking every transaction as we move your GroupWise data into Exchange.  This allows us to start and stop the process at will, back out if appropriate, and to produce accurate reports on what has happened on your Exchange server.

If you want training for your users in the GroupWise to Exchange transition, write to training AT sumatra DOTCOM.  You can also see a more detailed training summary here.

If you are migrating to Exchange and want more control over the automatic handling of routine scheduling emails, check out Sumatra's Rhino Event Sink.

When you're ready to make the switch contact us.