MailStore Server to MailStore SPE Migration

This guide shows, how to migrate a MailStore Server installation into the MailStore SPE.

This can be useful, if the customer has used MailStore Server before, but now he wants the archive to be stored in a service provider's datacenter.

Also, when an on-premise mailserver or on-premise e-mail files, like PSTs, should be archive by an SPE instance, it might be a good decision to do the intial archiving with MailStore Server in the customer's infrastructure, and then migrating the resulting MailStore databases into the SPE. Since the MailStore databases usually are considerable smaller then the uncrompressed e-mail volume, the amount of data to be transferred initially is significantly less. Usually a MailStore Server Trial license will do for that purpose.

The two product use a slightly different format of the MasterDatabase, which holds the configuration items, therefore it is not possible just to move the entire MailArchive directory of MailStore Server into the SPE. However, it is possible to transfer all the archive stores, which contain the actual messages.

• First you have to create an instance. The instance does not have to be started yet.
• Stop all archiving profiles in MailStore Server, either by setting the execution mode to manual or by disabling all scheduled tasks.
• If you want to transfer users, you could use the provided script.
• Stop the MailStore Server service.

Important Notice: Do not start any of the archiving jobs on MailStore Server again, or else you might risk that some mails will not be archived by the new instance in the SPE.

• Copy the archive store directories from MailStore Server into the instance's Data directory. You do not need to transfer the MailStoreMaster.fdb and MailStore.xml. Make sure, there is no remaining .lock file in one of the archive store directories. If there is any, the service is not stopped yet completely. When there are identical folder names, do not merge them, rename them before, instead.
• Start the SPE instance.
• Attach the transferred archive stores to the newly created instance. If there are lots of archive stores to be attached, you can use a Python script to attach them automatically.
• Depending on your setup:
  • Create users or synchronize the instance with a directory service. Use the writeConfigToSPE script to transfer your MailStore Server users.
  • Create archiving profiles.
  • Set compliance options.

Scripts

The scripts can be found in the Python scripting package. You have to open them in IDLE (or your preferred IDE) and adjust the values in the header of the script according to you installation. The scripts are well documented. Python and the Python SPE API Wrapper have to be installed on the computer, where you want to run the scripts that connect to the SPE. This is not necessarily a server, where the SPE is installed on. In the infrastructure where MailStore Server is running

bulkAttachStores.py

If there are lots of archive stores, you might want to use this script. It attaches all stores in the instance's Data directory, that are not already attached. The name of the store will be the folder name. Since the original name was stored in the MasterDataBase, this name is lost. In most cases, the name was equal to the folder name.

readConfigFromServer.py

This scripts reads some of you configuration in a file, that can be transferred to your SPE. Then you are able to use the script's counterpart on the SPE to write the configuration into the SPE instance. This script should be used, when the archiving profiles have been stopped, but the MailStore Server service is still running.

writeConfigToSPE.py

This script writes the configuration of a MailStore Server into an SPE instance. The configuration is read from a file, that has been created with the previous script.