Any MS Exchange Admins/Gurus here?

WizZard

I've been tasked with moving an existing domain with 3x Exchange 2000 (Standard) servers to a completely new domain, with new hardware.

Has anyone any experience of this before as I can't find much information about this exact scenario online.

Short Idea of what I need to do: (Current AD Domain: DomA; New Domain: DomB)

• Set up new domain on new server (Windows 2003)
• Set up Exchange 2003 Ent. on new server
  
• Migrate all users from AD of Windows 2000 old domain, DomA, to new Windows 2003 DomB
• Move all mailboxes from 3 old servers to one new server without losing mail

Separate Issue
Convert/move one mailbox on old server to public folder mailbox on Exchange 2003

Is what I want to do possible, or easy to accomplish (I doubt this)

Thanks!

Cableguy

Hi Wizzard,

I am not a guru on Exchange but I am doing something similar myself at the moment. I have to migrate the whole of an existing server 2000 with exhange 2000 to an SBS 2003 but saying that there are only about 15 users.

What I intend on doing is using ex-merge to export all the mail to pst files. You can do this manually on each system but would take an age if you have lots of users. Once I have the mail in pst format then I can approach the rest. Anti Virus, Backup etc etc,

It is a long process and does take a lot of planning with some down time. I hope this helps with the mail part of things anyway.

WizZard

Thanks cableguy, that's what I've been seeing is the only way. I'm just worried that it uses SIDs or something to map mailboxes to users which will not be carried over onto the new server...
Have about 30ish users at the moment.

Cableguy

What I intend doing is bringing in a similar Exchange 2000 Server and making it a Backup Domain controller. Transefering all information from one server to the next then flattening the existing server (Which is an excellent server hardware wise) then reinstalling with SBS 2003 and making it the primary server.

I am not sure what can go wrong and I`m sure something will but it should be fun.

WizZard

Hehe, a "suck it and see" approach
I'd like to try that but I'd rather my weekend not be spent at the office if something does go wrong.

Capt'n Midnight

Exmerge is the low tech approach. It dumps the old mailboxes to PST's with the same name as the user. You can then import them into the new site once identical usernames have been setup to match the PST names. Would recomend you do anyway in case something horrible happens or if you don't want to inherit anything other than email. I don't think Exmerge will backup or restore public folders though, but you could just drag and drop all the emails from the account to the public folder and then apply the appropiate permissions.

Don't forget offline backup and keep a copy of the 2000 EDB's until you are up and running for a while.

What backup software do you use ? Some claim to be able to restore mailboxes one by one. Not sure if they also create the AD settings too as that would be too easy.

have a look at www.slipstick.com too

WizZard

At the moment the backup software is MS Backup - don't ask!
I inherited the domain and it's not pretty to say the least!

I might try ExMerge if it just requires usernames...

Will have a look at SlipStick.

Thanks!

ntlbell

ExMerge is probably the best way to go

also look into ADMT Active Directory Migration Tool

Why do you need to change the domain structure?

WizZard

What would be the best way of migrating the usernames from the current AD to a new AD?

ntlbell

WizZard wrote:

What would be the best way of migrating the usernames from the current AD to a new AD?

ADMT

seamus

Personally, on the information you've given, I wouldn't perform any migration from one domain to the other.

Set up the new SBS as a secondary domain controller on the domain, and then promote it to PDC. This ensures that all of your AD data and setup is maintained as it is. Then you can quietly retire the old domain controller (which will now be a SDC), and change the domain functional level to win2003.

I've not used exchange, but I'm guessing there must be some migration facility on Exchange for moving users from one server to the other.

ntlbell

seamus wrote:

Personally, on the information you've given, I wouldn't perform any migration from one domain to the other.

Set up the new SBS as a secondary domain controller on the domain, and then promote it to PDC. This ensures that all of your AD data and setup is maintained as it is. Then you can quietly retire the old domain controller (which will now be a SDC), and change the domain functional level to win2003.

I've not used exchange, but I'm guessing there must be some migration facility on Exchange for moving users from one server to the other.

He never mentioned SBS?

yes exchange has a migration tool, there's 1001 ways to do this more info is needed really, my biggest concern is why a company is asking someone with no relevant exp to this, these migrations can get very tricky

qwertz

Care to elaborate how to setup the SBS as a secondary domain controller?

seamus wrote:

Personally, on the information you've given, I wouldn't perform any migration from one domain to the other.

Set up the new SBS as a secondary domain controller on the domain, and then promote it to PDC. This ensures that all of your AD data and setup is maintained as it is. Then you can quietly retire the old domain controller (which will now be a SDC), and change the domain functional level to win2003.

I've not used exchange, but I'm guessing there must be some migration facility on Exchange for moving users from one server to the other.

ntlbell

qwertz wrote:

Care to elaborate how to setup the SBS as a secondary domain controller?

Because of license restrictions You can't really do this AFAIK it's one SBS per network, so just use 2k3 as the SDC.

WizZard

ntlbell wrote:

He never mentioned SBS?

No, SBS is no good in this instance.

ntlbell wrote:

yes exchange has a migration tool, there's 1001 ways to do this more info is needed really,

Ok, tell me what you need to know.

ntlbell wrote:

my biggest concern is why a company is asking someone with no relevant exp to this, these migrations can get very tricky

Either I do it, or it doesn't get done, and everyone muddles on and tries to continue with the problems the server setup currently causes...
Email outages, domain logons taking ages and many other problems that I don't want to have to support. The fact is that this network/domain is a mess.

I'd rather spend a difficult/long time (weekend) migrating the users and mailboxes and leave more time for me to do my other jobs, than to spend countless hours supporting users because of current setup problems.

I'm sure you can see where I'm coming from.

seamus

ntlbell wrote:

He never mentioned SBS?

Oh you're right, someone else did, my bad. I wasn't aware that SBS was very specifically licensed. Interesting.

ntlbell

WizZard wrote:

No, SBS is no good in this instance.

Ok, tell me what you need to know.

Either I do it, or it doesn't get done, and everyone muddles on and tries to continue with the problems the server setup currently causes...
Email outages, domain logons taking ages and many other problems that I don't want to have to support. The fact is that this network/domain is a mess.

I'd rather spend a difficult/long time (weekend) migrating the users and mailboxes and leave more time for me to do my other jobs, than to spend countless hours supporting users because of current setup problems.

I'm sure you can see where I'm coming from.

pm me your email address and I'll go through it with you.