The migration of any enterprise is typically a complex process that requires careful planning and project management. Even a high-level summary checklist of necessary tasks can be quite long, and will expose a good number of details that must be addressed for a successful migration. The "choreography" in the sequence, timing, and coordination of tasks is also important. The complexity of most migration projects makes planning, foresight and communications critical to a favorable outcome. Halfway through the process is no time to discover that a neglected detail or invalid assumption will cost your organization dozens or hundreds of hours of productivity, or cause unnecessary aggravation for end users. Quest therefore recommends that you develop a comprehensive written Migration Plan before you begin any migration process. Developing a Migration Plan is a valuable exercise that will lead you to consider and accommodate all of the factors likely to affect your organization's migration.

At a minimum your Migration Plan should address all of the topics:

• Your Migration Destination

• Migration Scale

• Coexistence Strategy

• Before-and-After Site Configurations

• Other Strategic and Tactical Issues

• End User Communications