Exchange 2013 to 2016 Migration

[ITGURU]

I currently have a single exchange 2013 server which provides all roles, with an internal and external DNS name of webmail.domain.com

I am planning to migrate this to a new exhange 2016 server.

 

All internal clients are Outlook 2016.

 

A couple of questions before i start the migration:

 

- I know that when i install the 2016 server i may get certificate warnings in Outlook, so does the new servers dns need to have a different dns name both internally and externall i.e mail.domain.com or can i change them to be the same name as the exchnage 2013 server and import the ssl certificate to the new server from the old one so that when dns changes are made the new server can be pointed at using the same name so activesync clients etc don't need to re-configure.

 

- Do i then change the internal and external dns entries to the new 2016 server IP of which the 2016 server will proxy back to mailboxes on the 2013?

 

- what should the externaluri and internaluri be for both the servers once the new 2016 server is installed?

[PR-UK]

I've done this a few months ago.

 

1. Make sure you're running the latest Exchange 2013 CU
   
2. Setup the new 2016 server, set it up with the same Internal/External URLs as your existing 2013 server, use the same SSL certificate.
   
3. Double and triple check your 2016 Internal/External URLs and Certificate settings are correct for everything (Autodiscover, ActiveSync, OWA, OAB, etc.)
   
4. Update your DNS records to point at the new 2016 server.
   
5. Clients will pick up the updated DNS settings and will switch over to the 2016 servers Client Access Server (ActiveSync will do this silently, Outlook clients will prompt the user to close and re-open Outlook) if you've done everything correctly the users will not see any errors or warnings.
   
6. The new 2016 server at this point will handle all client requests and proxy the requests (where required) to the old Exchange 2013 server.
   
7. Migrate your mailboxes to the new 2016 server (Outlook clients will get another request to close and re-open Outlook once their mailbox has finished migrating)
   

There are a few other final steps, such as:

• Updating your Send/Receive connectors
  
• Update your incoming SMTP mail routing
  
• Migrate System Mailboxes
  
• Dismount and remove Exchange 2013 Databases
  
• Disable old server mail routing and check for queue backlogs
  
• Check you've got nothing pointing to the old mail servers IP
  
• Shut the 2013 server down and wait for any issues
  
• If there's no issues are a week boot the old server backup and uninstall Exchange 2013 to remove it from the Exchange Organisation
  

 

Hope that helps, I have to say it was the easiest of the Exchange migrations I've had to do!

[ITGURU]

I've done this a few months ago.

 

1. Make sure you're running the latest Exchange 2013 CU
   
2. Setup the new 2016 server, set it up with the same Internal/External URLs as your existing 2013 server, use the same SSL certificate.
   
3. Double and triple check your 2016 Internal/External URLs and Certificate settings are correct for everything (Autodiscover, ActiveSync, OWA, OAB, etc.)
   
4. Update your DNS records to point at the new 2016 server.
   
5. Clients will pick up the updated DNS settings and will switch over to the 2016 servers Client Access Server (ActiveSync will do this silently, Outlook clients will prompt the user to close and re-open Outlook) if you've done everything correctly the users will not see any errors or warnings.
   
6. The new 2016 server at this point will handle all client requests and proxy the requests (where required) to the old Exchange 2013 server.
   
7. Migrate your mailboxes to the new 2016 server (Outlook clients will get another request to close and re-open Outlook once their mailbox has finished migrating)
   

There are a few other final steps, such as:

• Updating your Send/Receive connectors
  
• Update your incoming SMTP mail routing
  
• Migrate System Mailboxes
  
• Dismount and remove Exchange 2013 Databases
  
• Disable old server mail routing and check for queue backlogs
  
• Check you've got nothing pointing to the old mail servers IP
  
• Shut the 2013 server down and wait for any issues
  
• If there's no issues are a week boot the old server backup and uninstall Exchange 2013 to remove it from the Exchange Organisation
  

 

Hope that helps, I have to say it was the easiest of the Exchange migrations I've had to do!

 

Thank you, i have done this is a test environment up to the point of the Final steps mentioned and seems to be a smooth transition. Seems to be the easiest migration so far having done this since exchange 2000.

[ITGURU]

Hi, Things are progressing well however come across something which i have just noticed on both the test and live enrvironment.

from the Exchange management shell on the new 2016 server, i get the following error message when launching the exchange shell when it tries to connect to either the 2013 or 2016 server, but still works fine from the 2013 server.

 

VERBOSE: Connecting to server.domain.local.

New-PSSession : [server.domain.local] Connecting to remote server server.domain.local failed with the following

error message : The WinRM client cannot process the request because the server name cannot be resolved. For more

information, see the about_Remote_Troubleshooting Help topic.

At line:1 char:1

+ New-PSSession -ConnectionURI "$connectionUri" -ConfigurationName Micr ...

+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

+ CategoryInfo : OpenError: (System.Manageme....RemoteRunspace:RemoteRunspace) [New-PSSession], PSRemotin

gTransportException

+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : ComputerNotFound,PSSessionOpenFailed

 

Does it work OK in your environment from the 2016 server? The exchange 2016 server is running on Windows Server 2016

Thanks

[ITGURU]

Sorted it i had to run run netsh winhttp reset proxy as i'd previously put the proxy in (without exceptions) so that exchange could check for updates at the start of the install

[tech-man]

I need to do this as well.

 

Question - If I install a 2016 server and re-point clients to the new server and a user opens their mailbox which is on the 2010 server - which OWA will they get, 2010 or 2016?

[tech-man]

Anyone?

[3s-gtech]

If it's just the mailbox on the 2010 server, you should get the 2016 OWA as the role for that is running on the 2016 server (if you've switched everything over correctly).