Migrate Notes content to SQL or Excel

Notes2SQL – Lift and Shift Migration from Notes to SQL

Lialis Notes2SQL performs a fully automated lift-and-shift migration of Lotus Notes document data to SQL Server.

The software analyzes the real structure of the Notes database and automatically creates the required SQL schema before migrating the data. No manual data modeling or redesign of the original Notes applications is required.

Notes2SQL is designed for real-world Notes environments where databases have evolved over many years and data structures are inconsistent or dynamic.

Key capabilities

• Fully automated lift-and-shift migration of Notes document data
• Automatic discovery of all fields used in Notes documents
• Automatic creation of SQL tables and columns
• Migration of very large Notes databases
• Incremental updates to keep SQL synchronized with Notes
• Reliable processing using Domino server agents

The result is a complete SQL copy of the Notes document data that can be used for reporting, data warehousing, application modernization, or long-term archiving.

Content-Only Migration

Notes2SQL migrates data only.

✅ Document content
✅ Text, numbers, dates, rich text, attachments

❌ Notes design
❌ Forms, views, agents, scripts

For Notes design or code analysis, separate tooling is required.

Documentation

Detailed technical explanations, field mappings, and configuration options are available in the Notes2SQL Admin Manual.

Notes rich text fields

A Notes document can contain attachments, images, links, text, and other rich text content in one or more rich text fields. Since a Notes rich text field can hold multiple files with the same name, a file like document.docx may appear several times across different fields. To prevent “file already exists” errors during migration, all content from each rich text field is exported as a single MIME data set. The rich text field is then stored in SQL as MIME data within a dedicated SQL field (see image below).

Exporting the rich text content (text, images and files) to disk.

Documentation

Detailed technical explanations, field mappings, and configuration options are available in the Notes2SQL Admin Manual.

Performance

It is possible to create multiple instances of the Lialis Notes2SQL nsf application (for example, Notes2SQL1.nsf, Notes2SQL2.nsf, etc.) on the Domino migration server. This allows you to run migrations in parallel, provided your Domino server has enough Agent Manager threads available to execute multiple agents simultaneously.

Analysis Speed

The analysis phase often takes longer than the actual content migration. In large projects, we have encountered Notes databases containing millions of documents and thousands of fields per document. In such extreme cases, the analysis may take several days to complete.

For typical Notes databases — with a few thousand documents and a moderate number of fields — the analysis is usually finished within one to two days.

Migration Speed

Content migration speed depends mainly on:

• The number of fields per document (each field must be written to SQL).

• The performance of the Domino and SQL servers.

• The network connection between the servers.

On average, you can expect a migration rate of around 20,000 documents per day.

Summary

Migration speed varies greatly depending on the database size, structure, and server performance.
While large databases may take considerable time, Lialis Notes2SQL provides reliable and resumable migration runs to handle even very large datasets efficiently.

System Requirements (Summary)

• HCL Domino Server 9 or higher, running on Windows Server 2012 or newer

• Notes Client 9 or higher for Notes2SQL configuration

• Microsoft SQL Server (e.g. Express or Developer edition)

• SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) required

• Microsoft Excel not required on the migration server

• Running SQL Server on a separate server from Domino is recommende

Expert Support for Complex Notes Migrations

Every Domino environment is different — and every Notes database holds its own surprises. During migrations, unexpected data structures, hidden fields, or design inconsistencies often appear. That’s why we don’t just deliver software — we deliver expertise.

Our team consists of highly experienced Domino administrators and developers who have handled countless migration projects. They understand the technical and practical challenges that come with large-scale Notes environments and know how to solve them quickly.

When issues arise, we can adapt and extend our tooling to handle special cases, ensuring that the migration process continues smoothly and successfully.

Whether your project involves a few databases or thousands, our specialists can guide, troubleshoot, and fine-tune the migration — making sure your data arrives in SQL exactly as expected.