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By Joab Jackson, GCN Staff

With Microsoft Exchange 5.5 on its way out, agencies must carefully migrate e-mail systems without disrupting service.

For the Social Security Administration, upgrading its e-mail servers from Microsoft Corp.’s Exchange Server 5.5 to Exchange Server 2003 proved to be a job so monumental that the agency had to break it into segments.

“Our strategy was to migrate the users on a site-by-site basis. That made the most sense for us,” said Bill Gray, deputy commissioner for systems at SSA. “If we tried to do entire regions at a time, it would really affect the performance.”

Most agencies will undertake a similar upgrade this year, if they haven’t already. At the end of this year, Microsoft will cease supporting its Exchange Server 5.5. No longer will the Redmond, Wash., giant supply routine bug fixes or vulnerability patches. Routine telephone support—either free or of the charge-per-incident variety—will no longer be offered, and shiny new Microsoft products may not work with Exchange 5.5.

Given the pervasiveness of Exchange 5.5—software that manages employee contact lists, calendars and e-mail—such upgrades will prove to be one of the major IT projects for many agencies this year. But the upgrades are necessary.

“For any of our customers who are still on 5.5, virtually all of them are either in the process of migrating or have placed it very high on the priority list of things that need to be done,” said Scott Spencer, director for the enterprise software solutions technology practice of government reseller GTSI Corp. of Chantilly, Va.

The good news is that employees can experience little or no downtime of their messaging clients—if a solid migration strategy is in place.

“It’s not easy. It requires a lot of planning. There are a lot of factors involved, so you want to make sure you plan and execute well,” Spencer said.

Complicating the process somewhat is the fact that if the agency wants to take full advantage of Exchange 2003’s enterprise features, they may have to re-architect their messaging systems—a move that will consolidate servers.

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