Exchange 2003 to 2007 in a CC3 network

[LorenzosEar]

A couple of years ago we were lucky enough to have RM come charge a tidy sum to install Exchange 2003 onto our CC3 network. (Please no rants about 8 gig C:\ and RM's commissioning policy, we're all better than that aren't we?)

The server was so underspecced it is now on it's last legs using all possible processing power. Anyway that's the problem now for the solution......

We are in the process of virtualising and want to move over to exchange 2007. We have more than sufficient processing power to have as many servers as we need.

Wondering if anyone out there has migrated from Exchange 2003 to 2007 in a CC3 environment before? and how did you do it?

Have a CC3 domain with 6 DC's & 1 exchange 2003 member server. Can make as many new servers as required.

[Michael]

Well Active Directory is running in the background of CC3, so MS Exchange should function as you'd expect it to. I suspect the migration will be pretty much as it would be in a standard environment, however I don't know whether the CC3 management tools will work on 64bit Windows Server 2003 let alone 64bit Windows Server 2008.

I suggest you make some enquiries with RM and get some answers. I suppose one solution would be to have one 32bit Windows domain controller running RM CC3 and a secondary domain controller running 64bit Windows with Exchange 2007.

[FN-GM]

Can you do AD preps on CC3? if not you might run into a problem as you need to do this to upgrade.

[LorenzosEar]

We have 32bit server 2003 but were planning on running 64bit server 2008 as member servers for exchange to run on.

[Michael]

We have 32bit server 2003 but were planning on running 64bit server 2008 as member servers for exchange to run on.

In a standard environment this wouldn't be an issue, however I don't know how this would work with RM CC3.

[clareq]

We run CC3 with Exchange 2007. There is no management of Exchange within the RMMC, we run it as a vanilla exchange box. RM installed it, but we've had to do quite a bit of the configuration - things like preventing students seeing staff in the address book, and limiting the number of recipients a student can send too - we learned that one quickly! Let me know if you require any information.

[LorenzosEar]

Okay, So I've basicly got my CC3 domain up to scratch i.e. Domain funtional Level upto 2003 native, Powershell installed, Service packs up to date etc.

I am about to run the following steps:

/PrepareLegacyExchangePermissions
/PrepareAD
/Prepare Domain

Will this have any effect on my current Exchange 2003 environment? I wanted to run these steps but actually install exchage 2007 later (when I finally get the licence).

I don't want to do something now which will cause any problems with my current setup but I want to get as much prep done as possible before I install the whole thing in the holidays.