Exchange upgrade 2003 > 2010

[JoeBloggs]

Hi there,

 

I am currently looking at upgrading our Exchange server from 2003 to 2010. (Not in an Educational Enviroment btw)

 

I've been having a read around and I have been getting slightly confused with some conflicting information on how many servers to have, whether or not to virtualise, best practice set ups, hardware specs etc. We currently have around 200 users who uses e-mail on around 16 branches, with smartphones, ipad, OWA connectivity.

 

Can anyone offer any advice on the issue? Or any problems they encountered during their upgrade process? Thanks.

[SYNACK]

Public folders are trouble, other than that as long as you can migrate from one server to another and can leave the old one running to pass clients along to the new one for a while its not too bad. Distribution groups can also be a hassle but this usually only applies if you are dealing with multiple domain names.

[JoeBloggs]

Just the one domain.

 

What kind of hardware would I be looking at?

 

2 physical servers for redundancy, 32GB RAM in each?

[sukh]

Well it really depends how deep you want to go, how much planning you want to go in, what the requirements are

 

for e.g TechNet v18.2 of the Exchange 2010 Mailbox Server Role Requirements Calculator You can use the calc for mbx planning, quite simple and good.

 

Physical redundancy is good, but you got to focus on the app layer, how are you going to make Exch redundant and the roles.

 

You really need to give more info, in terms of user profile, what HA you want and for what services.