Upgrade 2008 to 2012 Server Running Exchange

[karldenton]

Hi

 

I am looking at upgrading our physical exchange server from 2008r2 to 2012r2

 

I will later upgrade exchange to 2013

 

Can I just put the 2012 disk in and upgrade it or would it cause issues with exchange/certificates etc ? I'll unmount the mailbox first so people are not writing to it.

 

Thanks

[FN-GM]

You can't do that with Exchange. You will have to build a new separate server install 2012 R2 and Exchange 2013 and migrate over all the mailboxes and then remove the original.

 

Or you could go Office 365 and get rid of exchange all together.

[3s-gtech]

MS recommendation is that you never upgrade your Exchange Server OS. Best practice is to build a new box and migrate Exchange over, then upgrade the Exchange version from there. Don't do an in-place OS upgrade unless you wish to enter a Hellraiser style dimension of pain.

[karldenton]

Thanks for the advice everyone. Definitely won't start that ! We are moving virtual over the next few months anyway so I'll get an extra one for mail I think.

 

How much roughly is office 365 for around 200 mailboxes ?

[3s-gtech]

If done on the correct plan (and for Education), free.

[FN-GM]

AS above free. I am half way migrating 1850 mailboxes, its not costing me a penny. If you go for ADFS you will need a public IP and a certificate. Those combined won't cost you a total of £20 a year.

[karldenton]

Thanks. Where do I go to get Office365 free please? I only have about 200 mailboxes. We have a public IP as we have exchange anyway along with a digital certificate.

[Michael]

Have a look here

 

You can always start with E1 and change to E3 later, or for x amount of users, so you can have both.