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JoseZaldFlag for Canada

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What are the best practices to upgrade from 4.6 to 8.5?

A client of mine wants to catch up with modern times and finally upgrade his Notes server from his 1998 4.6 release to 8.51. They use Lotus Notes mail and a handful of not very sophisticated databases.  I am wondering what kind of issues will I face and sort of steps I should follow. I am thinking to get them in Lotus Foundations and basically rebuild the server, recreate users, and archive their old mail files.  I would like to ask the exports for their advice on what to watch out for and what are the recommended steps.  It is 15 users, one server (on an XP machine!).

Is it rip&replace the way to go, or can I just safely upgrade their existing cert.id and server.id? Mail files? Folders? etc.

Thank you!
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Sjef Bosman
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Don't just test the server; test the (notes/web) apps on the new system!
In some situations some @Commands can no longer be used (can't remember exactly which ones / when). Systems using the reservation system may be affected, or agents writen or reading files...
If your new system uses a different OS type than your old system (e.g. Win to Linux or vv.), bear in mind that agents accessing the file system may need some rework (if the databases WERE of the more sophisicated kind....)

There may be no issue at all, but it's always best to find out in a test environment, rather than finding your users unable to continue every days business after the upgrade.

Server.id and cert.id can be reused on the new server (but don't equip 2 servers in the same network with the same server.id).

Recreation of users....? I wouldn't! Names / Readers / Authors or even Text fields may contain user datails. I've seen some crap where a change to a different rande of usernames could render entire databases useless! Testing the upgrade itself is challenging enough I'd say!
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Thanks all. I am still working on the details. I will post the results.  Looks like Lotus Foundations will do the trick for this one.  It is small organization so they will get a lot of value out of Foundations, and I will get piece of mind that the server will work no matter what.  I am proposing a rip and replace to make sure we follow standards from Foundations. None of the databases are encrypted.  But once I move them over, mobile users will have re-replicate the databases and remove the old ones. I will have to sign all the databases with server ID and make sure all the groups are recreated in LFS. So, there is a bit of work, but I am confident it will fly. I use LFS for 2 years and 99.9 up time so far.

I will post the results of the migration soon.