Exchange 2003 > 2010 Transition / Co-existence

[mb2k01]

Hi All,

 

Does anyone have any experience transitioning from Exchange 2003 to 2010?

Did you essentially transition to do a swing upgrade to 2010 and then remove 2003 completely, or did you co-exist?

 

Is there anything to watch out for or be aware of, or is it a nice smooth process?

 

I'm hoping to get the time to virtualise this over the weekend, but the aim will be to do it on Monday morning (With E2010 running on Hyper-V!)

 

Cheers

[oxide54]

Hi All,

 

Does anyone have any experience transitioning from Exchange 2003 to 2010?

Did you essentially transition to do a swing upgrade to 2010 and then remove 2003 completely, or did you co-exist?

 

Is there anything to watch out for or be aware of, or is it a nice smooth process?

 

I'm hoping to get the time to virtualise this over the weekend, but the aim will be to do it on Monday morning (With E2010 running on Hyper-V!)

 

Cheers

 

keep us posted, I'm looking to go exchange 2010 once the 08 R2 domain is properly in place.

[mb2k01]

Will do!

Because of the lack of replies I had to learn the old fashioned way and read up on lots - it looks like it should work. I'm commiting the whole of Monday and Tuesday to getting it all done. I will come back here and post any updates / issues at the end!

[superfletch]

Good luck, rather u than me!

[garethEds]

Hi All,

 

Does anyone have any experience transitioning from Exchange 2003 to 2010?

Did you essentially transition to do a swing upgrade to 2010 and then remove 2003 completely, or did you co-exist?

 

Is there anything to watch out for or be aware of, or is it a nice smooth process?

 

I'm hoping to get the time to virtualise this over the weekend, but the aim will be to do it on Monday morning (With E2010 running on Hyper-V!)

 

Cheers

 

I'm sure when our LEA moved us over from 2003 to 2007 they co-existed and schools were moved over one at a time.

 

When I did my Alevels I'm sure we were taught one of the best ways was to run both together in parallel so that if anything goes wrong then we could go back to the old version. Parallel running.

 

Gareth

[mb2k01]

Good luck, rather u than me!

 

If it all works seamlessly then SIMS is the next HyperV planned move!

[john316]

Nearly finished our transition - we nearly suffered a disaster as our database trebled in size during the move which wiped out the available space. Had to get another 15k SAS drive to slap into the server. Our only issue is relating to the old server still being used by our new 2010 box for Global Catalog and DC work. We run our Exchange set up in a standalone domain with just the DC in that domain. The 2010 box is locked onto the old 2003 box and just won't shift away from it. I've made the 2010 box a GC but it just wants to use the old box instead. I switch off the old 2003 and restart the 2010 box then it just hangs on 'Applying Settings'. If I untick Global Catalog for the old server then I can't log into EMC so I'm still trying to find the answer for that. Its also affecting the OAB generation as that is generating errors for Outlook users saying An Object is Missing which is the OAB. I think its trying to use the old server to generate it rather than the new box hence the issue. I'm not sure if Demoting the old box will do the trick - always hate messing with AD and Exchange in case it goes belly up!

 

The actual email side of it though is working perfectly and is working very nicely. Doesn't matter how much RAM you chuck at Exchange though - got 12gb of RAM in the box and the Store was using nearly 9gb the other day!

 

EDIT: Managed to get rid of that Outlook error - had to tick a box in Outlook 2003 accounts setting to say Encrypt data between Microsoft Office Outlook and Microsoft Exchange Server. No missing object error now! I think the old Global Catalog issue is pretty much one I'm stuck with. Just can't find anywhere to change it and I can't risk a demotion of the old server at the moment. Got better things to do over Chrimbo than be sat trying to recover from a complete AD mess up. Getting rid of that annoying Outlook error is good enough for now.

Edited December 21, 2009 by john316

[djones]

Doesn't matter how much RAM you chuck at Exchange though - got 12gb of RAM in the box and the Store was using nearly 9gb the other day!

 

AFAIR, Store.exe will allocate as much memory as it thinks it may need (since Exchange 5.5) to avoid having to use the page file so high memory usage is not usually an issue. When other apps/processes need a bit extra, Store.exe should release it as and when. Having said that, if you get any "out of memory" errors then there is something causing a problem.

 

Dave.

[mb2k01]

I did promise an update, so here it is:

 

Here's what I wanted to achieve:

• Redeploy two existing hi-spec servers as Hyper-V (Running 2008 R2 Enterprise with the Hyper-V role installed)
  
• Install 32GB RAM in each redeployed server.
  
• Create a VM for Exchange 2010 on the first Hyper-V server. Allocate 16GB to start with.
  
• Install Exchange 2010 in to the existing Exchange 2003 environment.
  
• Transition all services from 2003 to 2010.
  
• Remove Exchange 2003.
  

I gave myself two days to allow for most, if not all of the above to be done.

At this point there would be no unified communication installation.

 

The existing domain already had a functional level of 2008 (even though we have no 2008 domain controllers), so that saved a bit of time.

 

Sadly I was heavily let down on the RAM delivery. The helpful delivery company decided they wouldn't deliver to a school during Christmas holidays - despite me checking with the reseller twice and asking them to pass info to the delivery company including my mobile number!

 

I also ran in to an issue with the Backup Exec remote agent - I wanted to make sure I had a decent backup of Exchange 2003 and also the Active Directory in my hands before I started with anything! (Even though our backup strategy has it, I always prefer to know I've done it myself!)

 

Being almost 1 day down always meant I was unlikely to cram everything in - especially allowing for replication of 2003 > 2010 and safely/sensibly remove 2003.

 

The installation of 2010 itself went pretty well. There was a fairly large chunk of time taken up by the pre-installation domainprep tasks (probably about 1-2hours in total), and I also had to download RSAT for part of that process to work. Other than that, the installation went fine - no problems at all.

Only things I'd point out for people reading this are RSAT, and make sure you have installed IIS with the IIS6 features. (If you don't, Exchange will install but you'll find you need to install IIS and reinstall the Client feature of Exchange again for features like OWA to work properly).

 

Here's where I am at the minute:

Currently, I have a fully working 2003 server with 98% of user mailboxes still on it. I also have the 2010 server running co-existing with 2003 and replicating changes etc. Internal and External mailflow works for mailboxes on both servers, however due to being with SWGfL I need to put a change request in to get a new public IP/subdomain to allow 2010 OWA.

 

Being confident that everything would co-exist happily, that is where I left it before Christmas.

I've remote connected in to check event logs on both servers and everything looks good.

 

What I need to do next:

• Put a change request in to SWGfL for a new public IP and domain for the 2010 OWA.
  
• Maybe purchase a proper certificate - not sure I'm happy rolling out the new service with the warning page before OWA access!
  
• Test out the built in anti-spam functions of 2010.
  
• If anti-spam is not much better than the 2003 Intelligent Message Filter, then install Brightmail.
  
• Move all 2003 mailboxes to 2010 box once all the above is done.
  
• Prepare to decommission the 2003 server.
  

 

In summary, what I’ve seen and experienced so far is hugely positive. It's not been a project with huge technical problems, and the fact that co-existence is achieved so easily is fantastic.

 

My progress towards completion will largely depend on SWGfL's change request speed, but I will come back and post another update when complete.

[garethEds]

Always interesting to read other people's work and projects. Especially when they are successful.

 

Thanks for posting the update.

 

Gareth

[HMCTech]

Could anyone post some links to helpfull sites that would help me with a 2007 > 2010 transition.

 

I never installed the 2007 server, and have had limited experiance with exchange in the past. Everything I have found basicly just says Step. 1 configure client access . I dont know how to so any help would be appreciated on the whole move

[mb2k01]

For 2007 to 2010 you won't really have much to worry about. In most ways your steps will be similar to mine above.

 

I don't have access the document I referred to for pre-installation stuff (I ran the pre-installation tasks from a command promt, so the setup process didn't do the domainprep for me etc), but this site proved useful reading for me before I did anything:

Exchange Server 2010: Exchange 2010 Help

[wiwo]

I've just installed exchange 2010 on a hyperv server within a network which is using exch 2007. It automatically picks up all the settings from exch 2007 so there's not much to do in the way of configuration. They are co-existing quite happily, however - I'm about to shutdown exch 2007 and divert mail straight to 2010 which might prove to be a bit more tricky.

[HMCTech]

Having a few issues, questions at the moment. We have 2007 all set up on one box and that is happy. I installed 2010 on a different box and I initially installed all the roles. I moved a users mailbox over to 2010 and they were able to connect to the new OWA but they were not able to send email. I removed the hub transport role from 2010, but now in the management for 2010 it says my organisation has no hub transport servers? Should 2010 be able to see 2007 hub transport server?

[AIT]

Having a few issues, questions at the moment. We have 2007 all set up on one box and that is happy. I installed 2010 on a different box and I initially installed all the roles. I moved a users mailbox over to 2010 and they were able to connect to the new OWA but they were not able to send email. I removed the hub transport role from 2010, but now in the management for 2010 it says my organisation has no hub transport servers? Should 2010 be able to see 2007 hub transport server?

 

can you take a screen shot of what you see under server configuration hub transport.

[HMCTech]

On 2010, nothing

[AIT]

On 2010, nothing

 

so can exchange 2010 not see any of the 2007 infrastructure. how about 2007 can that see 2010.

 

just a thought are you exchange 2007 running sp2

[HMCTech]

In 2007 when I go to the roles under Server Configuration only the 2007 servers are listed. So 2010 is currently running Client Access & Mailbox, but only the 2007 box shows up in 2007. In 2010 only the 2010 box shows up.

 

Yes SP2

[flyinghaggis]

The installation of 2010 itself went pretty well. There was a fairly large chunk of time taken up by the pre-installation domainprep tasks (probably about 1-2hours in total), and I also had to download RSAT for part of that process to work. Other than that, the installation went fine - no problems at all.

Only things I'd point out for people reading this are RSAT, and make sure you have installed IIS with the IIS6 features. (If you don't, Exchange will install but you'll find you need to install IIS and reinstall the Client feature of Exchange again for features like OWA to work properly).

 

Is there a way to carry out the Exchange Active Directory schema update without using the Exchange Installation utility. We run our DC's on Hyper-V so it would be useful if we could isolate one of them and run the schema update off network to make sure it's works OK?

 

I've had a hunt but so far the only way I've seen to apply the update is from the installation routine when setting up Exchange 2010?

[mb2k01]

Is there a way to carry out the Exchange Active Directory schema update without using the Exchange Installation utility. We run our DC's on Hyper-V so it would be useful if we could isolate one of them and run the schema update off network to make sure it's works OK?

 

I've had a hunt but so far the only way I've seen to apply the update is from the installation routine when setting up Exchange 2010?

 

I'm not aware of any other way, but if you want to progress offline on your VM you could always copy the contents of the CD to your VM?

 

If you want reassurance, mine was done on a live system (in the knowledge I had decent backups just in case!) and it went fine - no issues at all. I wouldn't hesitate to do it again.

 

Just to update my thread a bit - if anyone is wondering why I haven't done a final write up or summary, it is because I haven't actually finished! 2010 and 2003 co-exist perfectly with no issues at all. I have had several users running on 2010 for a couple of months and ironed out some of the minor issues + been testing hyper-v backups (as my E2010 installation is on Hyper-V).

I hope to complete soon!

[mrbios]

Doing our transition next week, these are the guides i've been given to read through before commencing:

Install Exchange 2010 in an Existing Exchange 2003 Organization: Exchange 2010 Help

Screencast: How to Install Exchange Server 2010 on Windows Server 2008 R2

Upgrade Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010