Question

eDirectory to AD miogration

Asked by: sgdought

We have a Novell 6 network of about 150 schools that each have one or more servers. We have an Exchange 2003 Active Directory that contains email accounts for all users so all users already have Active directory accounts. We will EVENTUALLY be migrating all the school servers to Windows 2003 servers (or Vista servers, by the time the district gets around to it). Have any of you folks done Novell to Active directory migrations? What are the major gotchas? Since the base Active directory is already in place, managed by the Microsoft dept., a lot of the design decisions are already made. Note: There are a few MS folks at the central admin site, but most of the LAN Engineers who handle the schools are Novell folks, with a bit of MS experience.

Currently we have 2 central Novell servers that hold the main copies of the edirectory partions. The high schools have a read write replica so that even if the t1 goes down, they can still login. If the t1 to a middle school or elementary goes down, the users cannot authenticate so no login is possible. This was done for replication traffic considerations. Fortunately the t1s are pretty stable. There will be at least on server in each of 150 schools, 2 or more at the high schools (say about 15 -20 high schools). What would be the be the best way to set up A.D replication in this scenrio?

Points I have questions about:
What is the best third party utility to migrate objects other than users and files (MS tools handle that)? (I'm currently looking at Quests NDS Migrator, pricey though)
Can objects ( such as printers, groups )be LDAP exported from eDirectory than perhaps LDAP or ADSI imported into a specific OU in active directory? Is there a better way to migrate objects other than users and files?
What is the best way to automate the computer account creation in active directory?

We are not quite to the planning stage, but when they get there I want to be knowledgable enough to be able to to offer my services (thereby making myself even more valuable to them). I already can do edirectory account manipulation through ldap exports -> perl script text file manipulation -> ldap imports. I plan to study ADSI scripting. Are there any other subjects that I should bone up on to help automate the transition? I'd like to do as much as possible through scripting so as not to pay Quest Migrator $10 a head for 15,000 users  

This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.

Subscribe now for full access to Experts Exchange and get

Instant Access to this Solution

  • Plus...
  • 30 Day FREE access, no risk, no obligation
  • Collaborate with the world's top tech experts
  • Unlimited access to our exclusive solution database
  • Never be left without tech help again

Subscribe Now

Asked On
2006-01-23 at 08:00:25ID21706665
Tags

nds

,

ad

,

edirectory

,

groups

Topic

Windows 2003 Server

Participating Experts
1
Points
250
Comments
3

Trusted by hundreds of thousands everyday for fast, accurate and reliable tech support.

  • "The time we save is the biggest benefit of Experts Exchange to Warner Bros. What could take multiple guys 2 hours or more each to find is accessed in around 15 minutes on Experts Exchange." Mike Kapnisakis, Warner Bros.
  • "Our team likes having a resource that is more secure than just using Google and most experts using this service really know their stuff. It's nice to look here first versus using Google." Dayna Sellner, Lockheed Martin
  • "Anytime that I've been stumped with a problem, 9 out of 10 times Experts Exchange has either the accepted solution or an open discussion of the potential solution to the problem." Kenny Red, eBay Inc.

See what Experts Exchange can do for you.

Got a question?

We've got the answer.

Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Need individual assistance?

Our experts are ready to help.

If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Want to learn from the best?

Read articles from industry experts.

Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.

Screenshot of an Article

Working on a long term project?

Store your work and research.

Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Access the answers to your technology questions today.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

What Makes Experts Exchange Unique?

Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Trusted by the world's most respected brands.

image of each brand's logo

Faithfully serving IT professionals since 1996.

Experts Exchange Logo

Try it out and discover for yourself.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

Related Solutions

  1. NDS/IIS
    I'm not sure it's possible, but I thought I'd ask anyways. (Some of you are pretty crafty when it comes to this sort of thing.) I neeed to run an application on Windows 2000/IIS 5. The application run perfectly. Now I'd like to restrict the use of it. And I'd like to do ...
  2. Upgrade to EDirectory
    I'm running four Netware 5.0 servers with NDS version 7.51 and one 5.1 server with Edirectory 8.82. I'd like to run all at some version of EDirectory. Naturally, it is not supported so there isn't much documention. Do you have a recommended way of performing this upgrade?
  3. I'm trying to connect to Novell eDirectory using LDAP Bro…
    I can't connect to my Novell eDirectory with LDAP Browser. Although I can connect using ConsoleOne. I believe I have used the correct host name, and tried every variation including Localhost, 127.0.01.1 and even tried setting up a DNS record to forward ldap request to the c...
  4. Renaming the Netware servers in the Novell NDS tree
    We have one Novell NDS tree with 10 netware 6.0 servers. Service pack versions different from SP1 to SP4. The server with master copy of NDS has SP2. I am trying to do the following renaming operations in that tree. Rename server "A" (SP4) into "NEW-A" De...
  5. NDS to AD Migration
    We have a Novell 6 network of about 150 schools that each have one or more servers. We have an Exchange 2003 Active Directory that contains email accounts for all users so all users already have Active directory accounts. We will EVENTUALLY be migrating all the school servers...

Free Tech Articles

  1. WARNING: 5 Reasons why you should NEVER fix a computer for free.
    It is in our nature to love the puzzle. We are obsessed. The lot of us. We love puzzles. We love the challenge. We thrive on finding the answer. We hate disarray. It bothers us deep in our soul. W...
  2. SCCM OSD Basic troubleshooting
    SCCM 2007 OSD is a fantastic way to deploy operating systems, however, like most things SCCM issues can sometimes be difficult to resolve due to the sheer volume of logs to sift through and the dispe...
  3. Migrate Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2010 and Windows 2008 R2
    This guide is intended to provide step by step instructions on how to migrate from Small Business Server 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010. For this migration to work you will need the fo...
  4. Create a Win7 Gadget
    This article shows you how to create a simple "Gadget" -- a sort of mini-application supported by Windows 7 and Vista. Gadgets can be dropped anywhere on the desktop to provide instant information, ...
  5. Outlook continually prompting for username and password
    There have been a lot of questions recently regarding Outlook prompting for a username and password whilst using Exchange 2007. There are a few reasons why this would happen and I will try to cover t...
  6. Backup Exchange 2010 Information Store using Windows Backup
    There seems to be quite a lot of confusion around the ability to backup Exchange 2010 using the built in Windows Backup feature. This stems from the omission of this feature prior to Exchange 2007 s...

Cloud Class Webinars

  1. Avoiding Bugs in Microsoft Access
    Alison Balter takes and in-depth look at avoiding bugs in Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the immediate window to debug your applications, invoking the debugger, using breakpoints to troubleshoot, stepping through code, setting the next statement to execute, ...
  2. Top 10 Best New Features in Visio 2010
    Scott Helmers gives live demonstrations of the top 10 new features in Visio 2010. This webinar will teach you how to create compelling diagrams by adding shapes to the page with a single click, linking the shapes in a diagram to data in Excel (or SQL Server, or SharePoint), ...
  3. IT Consultant Business Secrets Revealed
    Michael Munger, Experts Exchange tech pro and IT consultant, pulls back the curtain on his very successful businesses and answers question on every IT consultant and business owner should know about. He shares secrets on what he did to solve the 5 most common problems in IT, ...
  4. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
    Quest CTO, Mike Billon, gives an overview of the steps involved in building a dunamic disaster recovery plan. Through case studies and an examination of software/hardware tooles for monitoring and testing, you'll gain a better understandin of where you are, where you want ...
  5. Organize Your Visio Diagrams with Containers and Lists
    Scott Helmers uses cross functional flowcharts, wireframe diagrams, data graphic legends and seating charts to teach you: how to ustilize all three new structured diagram components in Visio 2010, the best practices for organizeing shapes in previous version of Visio, how to organize ...
  6. How to Us Objects, Properties, Events and Methods in Microsoft Access
    Alison Dalter gives an in-depbth look at objects, properties, events and methods in Microsoft Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the object browser, referring to objects, working with properties and methods, working with object variables, understanding the ...

Join the Community

Give a Little. Get a Lot.

Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.

Join the Community

Answers

 

by: sgdoughtPosted on 2006-01-23 at 08:02:30ID: 15767477

Comment: originally posted in the Novell section, but the comments I got there were not helpful, so I thought I would try the MS section.  
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Networking/Netware/Q_21705564.html

 

by: TheCleanerPosted on 2006-01-23 at 08:33:02ID: 15767771

I helped with a Novell 6 to AD migration last summer.
----------------------------------------------------------
What is the best third party utility to migrate objects other than users and files (MS tools handle that)? (I'm currently looking at Quests NDS Migrator, pricey though)
----------------------------------------------------------

Quest's NDS migrator is what we used...very clean...and worth the money for us and we only had 1 large tech school to migrate (about 10,000 students, and around 1750 employees)

-----------------------------------------------------------
Can objects ( such as printers, groups )be LDAP exported from eDirectory than perhaps LDAP or ADSI imported into a specific OU in active directory? Is there a better way to migrate objects other than users and files?
------------------------------------------------------------

We migrated the groups using NDS migrator, but not the printers or computer objects.  Those were recreated on a 2003 server for the printers (since it required installing the printer anyway) and computer objects were created during the RIS installs of the computers.  Server objects were created when we manually added the servers to the domains.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What is the best way to automate the computer account creation in active directory?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Again, we didn't automate this part.  The computers were moving from 98 to XP so we did RIS installs of each classroom/location, specifying based on Location where in AD these computers would reside.

We didn't want to automate this because we wanted to have RIS populate the GUIDs for us in AD for reinstalls and for SMS usage.


-----------------
Major Gotchas
-----------------

For us it was explaining the techie differences between Netware and Windows.  Management wanted the migration but didn't understand why things like the "server recycle bin" and seeing all folders/files in a directory (no such thing in NTFS as only showing the files/folders you have list permissions on) were a Novell only thing.

We also had to deal with the whole training issues involved with users, etc.

All in all, it took some serious man hours, but the NDS Migrator tool definitely eased our pain.

 

by: TheCleanerPosted on 2006-03-10 at 09:05:01ID: 16156392

Is this still an issue?  If not, can you please close this question?  Thank you.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

3 Ways to Join

30-Day Free Trial

The Experts

98% positive feedback on 31,087 answers since March 2000. angeliii is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for his work with MS SQL Server & Develoment.

He has also proven his knowledge of Visual Basic Programming, PHP Scripting and Oracle Databases.

The Experts

97% positive feedback on 10,752 answers since July 2000. lrmoore has more than 18 years experience in the networking industry.

The six-time Mircosoft MVPs specialties include firewalls, virtual private networking, and network management.

Testimonials

"...and excellent source for support... Kind of like having your very own IT dept." Electriciansnet

Testimonials

"I was apprehensive at signing up at first. However... it has already made my life as an IT administrator much easier." JaCrews

Testimonials

"WOW! You guys have great, active, and knowledgeable people on here." moore50

Business Clients

Business Clients

In the Press

"If you’ve got a question... Experts Exchange can supply an answer.”

In the Press

"...an invaluable aid for both IT professionals and those who require tech support."

In the Press

"where IT professionals provide quick answers on just about any topic"

Business Account Plans

Loading Advertisement...