More About MAPI to MAPI Migration

Unlike mail, which uses the IMAP protocol, the only way to currently read and migrate calendar, task, contact, notes, and journal data is by using the MAPI standard. The Sun toolkit makes use of two MAPI implementations to accomplish the task of migrating this kind of information.

First, the toolkit uses the MAPI implementation for Microsoft Exchange that transforms any MAPI call into Microsoft Exchange RPC accesses to the Microsoft Exchange server. Second, the toolkit uses a MAPI library to transform the call into the appropriate IMAP, WCAP, WABP, or LDAP call depending on the different Sun Java System server involved.

In principle, to migrate calendar, tasks, contacts, notes, and journal data, a MAPICopy program walks through each object in each folder to:

1. Perform a 'MAPI Copy' of the object from the interface

2. Read the data from Microsoft Exchange

3. Perform a 'MAPI Paste' of the object on the interface

4. Copy the data to the Sun Java System servers with the appropriate protocols

The MAPICopy program works without changing anything in the migrated object because the object remains the same in an homogeneous MAPI context.

Figure 5 illustrates how the MAPICopy program takes objects from the source platform and transfers them to the target platform.

Figure 5 MAPICopy Program