Hi,

A customer wants to migrate from his current Lotus Notes email system to Exchange 2013. It is not a problem; it could be done via IMAP migration by using different free or paid tools.

In near future they are planning to migrate their Exchange 2013 emails to their mother company email system. Mother company already has Exchange 2010 implemented and not planning to move to Exchange 2013 in near future.

Is it possible to move mailboxes and users from Exchange 2013 to Exchange 2010, could it be done:

1. via pst export-import procedures;

2. via cross-forest migration;

3. via imap migration;

4. via database detach/attach;

4. any other native Exchange tools or solutions?

I didnt find much information regarding any rollbacks or downgrade procedures regarding migrating from newer to older versions of Exchange.

 

  Thank you!

Very important question here is are they in the same AD DS forest as their mother company, or they are in separate forest?

Hi,

Mother company is in separate forest. Both forests are not linked now. But it is possible to build forest trusts during migration phase. Or due to large amount of Exchange data, even copy actual Exchange server's VHD's with AD and physically transfer it to mother company.

Thank you.

I would suggest to migrate notes to exchange 2010 using nme.

Hi

"You can downgrade Exchange Server to any version that Microsoft continues to make available at its Volume Licensing Service Center website on your organization's Licensed Downloads page. Downgrading does not depend on Software Assurance; it is a benefit of Volume Licensing."

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/exchange/en-US/3b0f6202-e62b-4e02-be01-c96f73608b04/exchange-2010-user-cals

Cheers

Hi,

Mother company is in separate forest. Both forests are not linked now. But it is possible to build forest trusts during migration phase. Or due to large amount of Exchange data, even copy actual Exchange server's VHD's with AD and physically transfer it to mother company.

Thank you.

In that case, you will need cross forest migration. You can visit my blog at http://dizdarevic.ba/ddamirblog, I wrote an article about that. It's for 2010->2013 migration, but most can be applied to your case also.

I agree with Damird, you can just plan a cross forest migration.

Does this mean that cross-forest migration is fully supported no only with scenario Exchange 2010 -> Exchange 2013, but also when migrating from Exchange 2013 back to Exchange 2010? and even when migrating between two Exchange 2010 forests.