Geeh... migration

Last saturday we migrated two separate email domains and our Google Apps domain into one Google account. Besides the mailboxes, we therefore also had to set up Google Talk buddy lists, export/import the calendars and copy the Google documents.

We started by having a general reset on all passwords, so we could execute all phases easily.

The mailboxes went very smooth. Google has the right tooling to enable this. The only hiccup was the transformation from folders to Google's labels. Deeply nested folders come out really ugly, but hey, what can you expect? I prefer labels to folders, especially since folders do not cater for multiple annotations like labels do. And let's face it, like an animal that is both bird and fish, some mails refuse to be defined by a single label.

Google Talk is easy as well. There is a global setting which automatically makes domain users accept any buddy request -- this is key! After this setting is enabled, it is just a matter of copying the entire email list into the invitation text field for a user and the deed is done. Google could improve its service considerably by having a setting which automatically connects all domain users.

Calendar has the same ease of migration as Google Talk. Just export the calendar and reimport it, mapping to the right user names.

Google Docs is a bit of a pain. There is no way to change ownership of a document to someone outside of the domain (@Google -- improvement?). Luckily, the Google Docs API is splendid. I made a custom script that does the following:

• analyze all documents and flag those that are owned by a user
  
• check the access rights on that document
  
• download the document to a temporary location
  
• upload the document to the new Google Docs account
  
• reassign the access rights to the uploaded document (also using new email accounts)
  

The script performed well. Noteworthy is that on uploading a document in an automated way, a lot of garbage is created by Google. I think it has something to do with uploading a high number of documents in quick succession. Anyway, the script also cleaned up the Google garbage, which was not hard since the garbage documents still had the original filename used for downloading.

After the fact, I noticed I forgot about document labels and email notifications when a document changes. Not a big deal for people, but if you want to be all-inclusive, you should have this as well.

The migration took less than a working day with a minimum number of complaints.

Here's to Google!