NetIQ Migration Suite
Microsoft purchased the original version of ADMT from NetIQ, so ADMT and NetIQ Domain Migration Administrator, a component of NetIQ Migration Suite, have a shared heritage that's evident in the products' UIs. However, NetIQ Migration Suite offers some major improvements over ADMT, both in its functionality and its GUI. NetIQ Migration Suite is an enterprise-class tool that's suitable for planning and executing large migrations. Of all the tested products, this one offers the most robust migration-planning functionality, and performing a migration required only minor troubleshooting. These features and the product's affordable price of $6 per user make it my choice for best migration tool.
Like ADMT, NetIQ Migration Suite required some manual steps to configure my domains for migration. But as Figure 3 shows, the Domain Migration Administrator component provides excellent step-by-step documentation, and I completed my first migration attempt without error. After installation, NetIQ Migration Suite provided me with clearly labeled steps to run the necessary wizards in the appropriate order. During the first two steps, I created a Migration Project and selected objects to migrate. At any time, I could view the status of all the objects I'd selected and modify the properties to set during the migration. The main view of the project gave me a status report showing how many users, groups, and computers had been migrated and a log of each executed migration task, complete with an undo link when appropriate.
NetIQ Migration Suite's reporting capability was the most useful of all the products I reviewed. The reports were easy to use, specific to migration, and let me query the source and target domains for information such as necessary security translations and service accounts. Not only did the product report about SID history and non-migrated objects in the domains, it also compared multiple projects to find objects that were scheduled for migration multiple times. The product's excellent project management and detailed reporting gave it flexibility in creating migration projects on the fly and later modifying them to ensure that they captured all the necessary objects and steps.
NetIQ Migration Suite also offered additional migration options. I could specify a script to run before or after the user, computer, or group migration—a great compromise between a completely scripted migration and one that's limited to the GUI features. The one con was that migrating computer accounts forced a reboot.
NetIQ Migration Suite also includes Server Consolidator, a wizard-based tool that lets you move files, folders, printers, and shares—including all necessary permissions—between servers. This tool would be helpful in migrations that involve moving resources between computers in addition to just repermissioning files and folders.
Quest Migration Suite for Active Directory
Quest Migration Suite for Active Directory bundles Quest Domain Migration Wizard and Quest Reporter. The first of these tools is a functional and easy-to-use migration product; the second adds AD-reporting functionality. Of the products I tested, Quest Migration Suite for Active Directory was unparalleled in ease of use. Although its project-management and reporting capabilities aren't geared toward migration planning, the excellent scripting integration, hassle-free operation, and post-migration value of Quest Reporter make the suite a contender—if you're willing to pay a bit more.
Domain Migration Wizard, which Figure 4 shows, organizes migrations into projects and sessions. A project contains sessions and migrated users, groups, and computers. I could quit a session at any time and modify or complete it later. Domain Migration Wizard also provides reports that you can access from each step of the Wizard, but these reports provide information about only the current session. I would have liked the ability to view the objects I planned to migrate across multiple sessions and projects.
The most impressive part of Quest Migration Suite for Active Directory was its ease of use. Both the installation and my first migration were error free. Unlike the other products I tested, this product doesn't offer a trial-migration function, but since I didn't encounter any errors, I didn't miss the ability to preview anticipated errors. The product provides an Undo feature to roll back changes after each session. You don't need to reboot or have users log off of a computer to migrate it, and the product even sets migrated computers' last logged-on domain to the target domain, preventing users from having to select a new domain during their next logon. Migration was seamless and easier than with any other tested product.
Quest Reporter's reports aren't specific to domain migration, but some of them—such as duplicate users and effective NTFS permissions reports—were useful for planning migrations. Other reports included data about AD security and both Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) and Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act compliance. Quest Reports is a valuable tool for a new AD infrastructure, and its inclusion in the suite makes the $14-per-user price tag more palatable.
A Tough Choice
Choosing between the NetIQ Migration Suite's great migration-planning features and Quest Active Directory Migration Suite's ease of use was difficult. Although bv-Admin for Windows Migration shares NetIQ Migration Suite's ability to configure migrations in advance, the NetIQ product's price makes it the best deal. Of course, you might feel different, depending on your specific needs and environment.
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