Exchange 2007 to 2010 upgrade... im a bit wary of it

[timbo343]

I am planning / needing to upgrade our 1 exchange server from 2007 to 2010 but i am i bit wary of it (the cas/hub etc are all on this machine). I managed to do the 2003 to 2007 upgrade from one physical machine to another but that was before we had external email access and emails weren't used that much in school, now as time has gone on everyone is using emails and accessing them from home.

 

Would anyone be able to point me in the right direction on any helpful information on moving from 2007 to 2010. Ive got a document from word press which seems ok, but was wondering if anyone knew any other sites which would be of interest.

 

I have got a security certificate on the exchange server at the mo, how do i go about getting this off the current server and onto the new server?

 

Also, if i wanted to keep the same name of my exchange server (atlas) how would i go about it or is it just best if i give it a brand new name?

 

I think i shall be doing this during the summer but i am dreading it.

 

Thanks

[Gatt]

Its actually quite a smooth transition

The new 2010 box will automatically pick up all your existing settings

All you really need to do is move the mailboxes across..

 

I did hit a slight snag with this in regards to some of the system mailboxes.. I'm sure i posted it on here (was about April last year IIRC...)

 

Also, I had to do it twice - once to go from 2007 to 2010, then again when I reformated the old 2007 server to 2010 (eg EX01 -> EX02 -> EX01)

[timbo343]

I remember seeing your posts... So you're saying that i need to get exchange 2010 installed on a server and give it a random name, move all the mailboxes over to the 2010 machine and uninstall exchange from Atlas. When done, install exchange 2010 again on the new physical server which is going to be atlas Mk2 and move the database back over...

[sonofsanta]

I've got this to do this summer - new virtual gubbins going in which will have an Exch2010 box on it - and I suspect it is going to be my biggest hassle. I also really should have planned ahead when getting the SSL certificate earlier this year as now the cert won't be valid inside school... d'oh.

 

Anyway - please update the thread with any issues you have or any good reads you come across - you'll certainly get rep from me for it!

[gshaw]

One thing I was reading about is what you have to do with DNS if you're going to have the servers coexisting, not sure if anyone on here has already done it but MS mentioned about setting up legacy.yourdomain.com for OWA 2007 users while you're migrating mailboxes across.

 

If you do it all in one go it's not an issue but would be good to know from people's experiences rather than Technet docs...

[Gatt]

I remember seeing your posts... So you're saying that i need to get exchange 2010 installed on a server and give it a random name, move all the mailboxes over to the 2010 machine and uninstall exchange from Atlas. When done, install exchange 2010 again on the new physical server which is going to be atlas Mk2 and move the database back over...

 

Pretty much.. So you will effectively have 2 exchange servers running at once during the moving of mailboxes..

 

Though don't collapse your 2007 server until you are sure all the mailboxes are over

Also, you need to ensure that office has correctly identified the new server - 2007 onwards does this automatically, but think 2003 needs to be manually told about it.

 

Then collapse 2007, rebuild it as 2010 and repeat the process...

 

Once all the mailboxes are back on Atlas as 2010, you can remove your temp server completely...

[Gatt]

One thing I was reading about is what you have to do with DNS if you're going to have the servers coexisting, not sure if anyone on here has already done it but MS mentioned about setting up legacy.yourdomain.com for OWA 2007 users while you're migrating mailboxes across.

 

If you do it all in one go it's not an issue but would be good to know from people's experiences rather than Technet docs...

 

I don't recall having to mess with DNS for this... though I'd rather prevent them from accessing OWA during the transition

[RobBaxter]

There are some REAL Headaches with a 2007 to 2010 migration of exchange. One of which is x86 to x64 architecture cross over. The system I inherited was Server 2003 R2 32Bit with Exchange 2003. I had a double generation gap to update too aswell as a having to update the server to 64bit which as im sure you are aware, is a right pain in the ass!

 

My solution was to just start again, I created a fully new domain on a new HP Prolient. However! THe migration of "Cross Forrest" "Cross Generation" exchange on this level was utter hell. The only way I found to do it was to get a specialist tool to mount the exchange databases and migrate the mailboxes over.

 

Anyways... it is prudent to most certainly backup, also to give youself a clear week so that WHEN stuff doesnt work, you are not caught short. What i did was direct all mail to a Reply Robot which answered all email accross the domain for a short period.

 

"We are currently updating some mission critical email technology, as a result your emails can not be recieved at this time, if you require urgent contact please phone the school on ..." because you just know that its going to cause hell.

 

If im honest with you 2010 to 2010 SP1 exchange update was nightmere enough and it took a bi xeon with 6GB of memory over 2 hours to get through the update manifest... eeeek!

[Gatt]

@timbo343 - this is the thread from about a year ago about my migration.. http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows/54086-advice-upgrade-exchange-2007-2010-a.html

[timbo343]

@sonofsanta : I shall be doing it over summer (as well as rolling out Win7 & office 2010, installing cabling etc, etc, etc... fun times) hopefully at a time when hardly any staff are on the network... i know a few still work during the holidays. I shall definitely update this as im going along... although there maybe another thread which will have started by then... but ill keep this one going. I am in the same boat... i have just bought a SSL certificate but i didnt include the server name in mine, just our external domain name. We were having an issue with outlook as it didnt know about the internal certificate so i followed this Security warning when you start Outlook 2007 and then connect to a mailbox that is hosted on a server that is running Exchange Server 2007 or Exchange Server 2010&#58 &#34The name of the security certificate is invalid or does not match the name of and it sorted the problem out.

 

@Gatt: Yeah, thats the article i was reading earlier on... Im not too sure if it was you that was having a problem with the address book or if it was @john.

 

@RobBaxter: I didnt think they released a version of Exchange 2007 x86 unless it was for testing purposes... i seem to remember wanting to install the x86 version but was made to go for the x64 version and im glad i did. Ooooh, that sounds a right PITA, though have found some useful documentation on the net regarding 2003 to 2010.

 

Maybe im a bit wary as we are still on Outlook 2003 as it needs is settings re-configuring but 2007 and 2010 "should" pick the new server up without any problems..

 

Maybe ill just give the mail server a new name and have done... I mean, the staff get their homepage as their mailbox and for those that don't they have a favourite so they don't really need to know the name of the server.

 

Hmmmm

[Gatt]

Yeah the x86 version of 2007 was only available during the beta and RC stages, once it RTM'd it was x64 only...

[RobBaxter]

Yeah the x86 version of 2007 was only available during the beta and RC stages, once it RTM'd it was x64 only...

 

Yeah! I was thinking 2003 attualy! My bad. It should be fairly straight forward, at least as much as ms let it be

[sukh]

"Maybe im a bit wary as we are still on Outlook 2003 as it needs is settings re-configuring but 2007 and 2010 "should" pick the new server up without any problems..

 

Maybe ill just give the mail server a new name and have done... I mean, the staff get their homepage as their mailbox and for those that don't they have a favourite so they don't really need to know the name of the server."

 

1.Outlook 2007 and above will use autodiscover and setup the profile automatically. Internal clients use the SCP to discover autodiscover so it WILL work.

2. Why do you want to keep the server name the same?

3. When you install exch 2010, make sure you create a CAS array, even if you have one CAS server, and set thin on the DB, otherwise you will have issue amedning the Outlook profile later should you wish to use a CAS array.

[Gatt]

Ah yeah, Outlook 2003 is going to make it a tad difficult as you say due to the manual configuration..

Can you not upgrade to Outlook 2007/2010 first?

[sukh]

1. It is recommened to use at least Outlook 2007/2010 with exch 2007/2010. You'll be impressed with the performance when you upgrade, in particular cache mode. It's different with Outlook 2003 comapred with 2007/2010.

[timbo343]

Ye, im using Outlook 2010 on my desktop at work, when somene sends me an email there is hardly any wait, it drops straight into the inbox unlike 2003 where you have to wait a bit.