Re: moving from Exch 5.5 to Exch 2003

[Albert Duro]

Backup is a problem.  Different kinds of backups for AD and Exch.  Time: 
depending on the kind of backup setup and size you have, it could take all 
night or even >24 hrs to do a full backup.

Disaster recovery is another problem.  AD recovery is tricky enough by 
itself, but having to recover both AD and Exch is damn near nightmarish. 
And the time involved: on a member server you could have dialtone email 
going in under half an hour, if it's a standby recovery server.  If it's a 
rebuilt server, you could have it humming in 2-3 hours.  But if you to 
rebuild a DC first, that alone could take a whole day, and if there's 
hardware to be replaced, two or three days.

There are plenty of strong reasons not to put a DC and Exch on the same box, 
BUT the upshot is that it's neither unfeasible nor unsupported -- it's just 
asking for a lot of trouble and taking a big risk.

Have you considered Small Business Server in the office(s) where you have to 
combine the two?  SBS was designed and operates very well as combination 
server (and in the area of backup and recovery, it's also been developed to 
an effective and painless state.  Or so I hear)

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "titanic panic" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Exchange Discussions" <exchange@intm-dl.sparklist.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2007 6:34 PM
Subject: Re: moving from Exch 5.5 to Exch 2003


James,

First, thank you very much for your thoughtful reply.  For our
topology, you propose an intriguing scenario, but I'm fearful of
unconventional scenarios.  Our inter-office VPN links aren't robust
enough to guarantee mailbox access to remote offices and due to
political considerations (we're a law firm with a great deal of
autonomy at each office), they won't want to cede control to an asset
like e.mail to one office.  Nor would our central NY office want that
responsability.

I was able to get the first Exch 2003 server up in NY and it seems to
be working ok.  I'm in LA now preparing to install the next Exch 2003
server to test connection agreements between NY and LA.
Unfortunately, my counterpart here commandeered the hardware we had
earmarked for an exchange server for a different application and is
now demanding that we install Exch 2003 on one of the office's DC's.
*sigh*

I found this link as an argument against running Exch 2003 on a DC:

http://www.petri.co.il/problems_with_exchange_2003_installed_on_domain_controllers.htm

if someone else could please provide some other compelling reasons
against this setup, I'd be greatly appreciative.

Thanks and best New Year wishes,

Joon



On 12/21/07, Knoch Jr., James W <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Let me see if I can guess how your topology is setup.

You have separate domains for each office, but using a single Exchange
5.5 Org?  With Exchange mailbox servers in each office as well?

If this is the case, is there any way you can reduce your domains to a
single user account/Exchange forest?  I recommend it, and it would
probably make your life a little easier.  If your inter-office links are
fast enough, you could consolidate your Exchange servers to a single
office.  Depending on the user size/latency in each office, you could
stand up a DC in each as well.  Another option is to setup child domains
for each of your office that will host exchange.  You could do this
method either using an empty root method (child domains for each
office's user accounts) or an amalgamation of a main root/child domain.

If you cannot consolidate your domains, then you may want to look at
setting up Exchange in a separate Resource forest.  You would then need
to maintain a separate forest and at least one resource DC that is a GC
in each office that hosts an Exchange server, along with account forest
DCs.  As you can see that can increase expense.  You would then need to
synchronize automatically (or manually) with each user account domain
and create disabled user accounts in your Exchange resource forest that
are mailbox enabled.

Otherwise, if you want to keep each office separate, you may be looking
at a separate Exchange Org/Forest for each.  Then if you wanted to share
a global address list, you would have to maintain directory
synchronization to between each of them by creating contacts in each.
This can get messy quick, and you will be reducing Exchange
functionality that you may be using today.  Also, the time/money spent
on getting synchronization working effectively may be better spent on a
consolidation project.

We consolidated about 14 various windows 2000 account forests down to
three or four Windows 2003 forests as part of our Exchange 2003
consolidation/migration from Exchange 5.5.  We have certain restrictions
in place in where a DC gets stood up.  Size of office, criticality, etc.
Also, we went from ~30 Exchange servers down to about 8.  We went with a
main single user account domain, but we do host a few mailboxes for a
couple of other forests that have certain restrictions.  Once we had our
Exchange organization joined to our existing Exchange 5.5
infrastructure, we were able to then change the Blackberry server's
service account to a mailbox enabled account on Exchange 2003 and still
maintain Blackberry services for all mailboxes involved (very easy to do
and was a non-event).  Initially Exchange 5.5 provided Internet mail
services, which we later switched to 2003 (the internet mail servers
were a swing method upgrade in my region).  After we moved the
mailboxes, we began the user account consolidation.

If you go into more detail about your entire domain/exchange environment
we might be of more help.  Right now I'm just guessing.  If I got your
environment wrong, then please note that you can only have a single
Exchange organization per single root forest.  If you had to have
separate Exchange organizations, you would need a Blackberry server for
each.

Thanks,
James

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
titanic panic
Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2007 6:13 PM
To: Exchange Discussions
Subject: Re: moving from Exch 5.5 to Exch 2003

Albert,

First thank you very much for your help.  Second, your advice has
scared the bejeebus out of me.  I understand what you said about
accretion and consolidating everything into one Exch 2003 server, but
that's just way biting off way more than I could chew.  Doing that
would mean doing Exch 2003 + RIM BES at the same time which is
something I'm not sure I can pull off.

While going through the documentation to install the first Exch 2003
server, I noticed that domainprep wants to install on basically every
domain that is there.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa997526.aspx

You must run DomainPrep in the following domains

* The root domain.
* All domains that will contain Exchange 2003 servers.
* All domains that will contain Exchange Server 2003 mailbox-enabled
objects (such as users and groups), even if no Exchange servers will
be installed in these domains.
* All domains that contain global catalog servers that Exchange
directory access components may potentially use.
* All domains that will contain Exchange 2003 users and groups that
you will use to manage your Exchange 2003 organization.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

It will be very difficult to run domainprep on all 4 offices
simultaneously, given that they're in London, NY, Chicago, and LA. Is
it possible to:

-Run domainprep, then install the first Exch 2003 server in NY and not
move mailboxes onto it, and keep the existing Exch 5.5 infrastructure
intact.

-Then fly to LA and run domainprep there, install an Exch 2003 server,
create a connection agreement, between NY - LA, not move mailboxes,
keep the existing Exch 5.5 infrastructure intact.

-Repeat for Chicago and London.

Again, I know you said that accretion may not be possible, but there's
no budget for bringing in outside help, so I have to do the best that
I can with as much safety as possible.

Thanks,

Joon

On Dec 17, 2007 11:00 PM, Albert Duro <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Is it possible to just install Exch 2003 and join the current site,
> > and then move mailboxes?
> Certainly.  That's what I did, a couple of times.  It's been a while ,
so I
> don't remember too much detail, but MS has TONS of documentation on
how to
> do that.  2 things you'll have to pay particular attention to are
schema
> updates and Connection Agreements.
>
> That's for the straight upgrade stuff.  But you have some serious
> complications with your 5.5 topology.  You can't get away with that
kind of
> accretion in the >2K world as you could in 5.5.  The way that Servers
and
> Clients do business is quite different -- sites are redefined, there's
close
> integration with AD and DNS, there's Back End and Front End servers,
Cached
> Mode,  etc. etc.
>
> If I were in your shoes, from what little I know of them, I would
either
> consolidate all the servers into one 2k3 servers, or, if I had to keep
a
> herd of them, I would bring in a consultant who knows how to plan a
>2k
> Exchange network.
>
> And I would definetely take them off the edge, if that means what I
think it
> means.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "titanic panic" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: "Exchange Discussions" <exchange@intm-dl.sparklist.com>
> Sent: Monday, December 17, 2007 4:45 PM
> Subject: moving from Exch 5.5 to Exch 2003
>
>
> > Hello,
> >
> > We have Exch 5.5 SP4 servers in 4 offices and after laying down our
> > Active Directory, the time has come to upgrade to Exch 2003.
> >
> > I looked through this KB article on the swing server method:
> >
> > http://support.microsoft.com/kb/821896
> >
> > and thought that the upgrade process could be done through this
method
> > without actually using it as a swing.  The hardware for the old Exch
> > 5.5 servers holding mailboxes can be retired given their anemic
> > spec's.
> >
> > Is it possible to just install Exch 2003 and join the current site,
> > and then move mailboxes?
> >
> > We have two Exch 5.5 servers on the edge of our network, one which
> > processes and routes incoming/outgoing mail, and another which
handles
> > blackberry users on a BES.  Can these be left alone and remain
> > functioning?  Will the routing server on the edge, direct mail to an
> > Exch 2003 server and also send mail?
> >
> > Thanks for any help,
> >
> > Joon
> >
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