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Exchange upgrade

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by fvillasenor

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My company is preparing to upgrade our exchange 2000 environment to 2003. Can anyone help with tips, referance material(best practice) that will help me avoid common pit falls? here is how our current 2K box is set-up:
OS - Exchange 2000 SP4
350 mailboxes
4 Storage Groups
12 Stores

4 replies

by churdoo

What level is your AD? Are you using the Instant Messaging component of exchange 2K? IM had a short life in EX2K and is not supported in 2K3 and above. If using IM, that doesn't mean you can't upgrade nor that you lose IM, it just means that you'll have to leave at least one EX2K server in your organization if you want to keep using the IM component.

EX2K to 2K3 otherwise should be pretty straightforward. Run your ADPREP if necessary and install the 2K3 server(s) into the same exchange organization. You'll see your 2K3 server(s) in ESM of EX2K or EX2K3 servers.

Configure and test inbound/outbound mail flow on the new servers

Re-home your mailboxes to the new server(s) with ADUC, replicate your public folders and system folders to your EX2K3 server(s) with ESM, and leave the 2K servers on for a couple of days to automatically redirect Outlook users to their new mailbox homes.

When you're comfortable, begin the process to retire the EX2K server(s) per this MS KB article 307917: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307917/

by fvillasenor

I am sorry but what do you mean by "what level of AD" we are running in Mixed mode 2000/2003 server environment. No, we are not utilizing IM. Ok, so are you recommending I stay away from doing an in place upgrade? Our exchange server(2k) is currently running server 2K, if we decided to do an in place upgrade how would that work? upgrade the OS first to 2003? then upgrade exchange 2K to 2003? Is this upprade path supported, wise?

by churdoo

By "what level of AD," I meant are your DC's running Server 2003, or Server 2000? This is important because if your DC's are still Server 2000, you will need to do ADPREP /forestprep and /domainprep on your schema master before you attempt the exchange upgrade.

In place upgrade should be OK, as long as the present E2K servers aren't light on RAM, HDD, or CPU. The process would be, a) make sure you're on the latest Server 2000 and Exchange 2000 SP, b) in-place upgrade the O/S to Server 2003, c) in-place upgrade Exchange 2003, d) service pack Exchange 2003 and Server 2003.

I didn't suggest in-place upgrade simply because I never do; I just think that migrating onto a new box is cleaner -- It lets you space out the migration over a couple of days with failback points along the way, forces you to touch all the little nooks and crannies of Exchange and re-home/verify your exchange config (system folders, connectors, RUS, etc.), and is LESS RISKY -- and so I just don't think to suggest in-place.

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