Re: Exchange Server upgrade

  • From: Rick Boza <rickb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: Exchange List <exchangelist@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 17:13:35 -0500

Space needed to hold the mailboxes is only one potential challenge ­
although practically speaking, most folks don¹t get much better than a 1.1
or 1.2  single instance store ratio so the ?more disk space will be used¹
issue is usually overblown.

A bigger issue could be repliability ­ your email that you just brought into
the new environment might generate NDRs when replied to.  A Bad Thing ? as
they say.  Effectively you are creating a new organization with new address
schemes (though of course you want to try and ensure they are identical) and
new SIDs for the mailboxes.  I always worry about repliability when you're
trying to import mail from one organization into another.

If you absolutely must maintain the same name, a ?safer¹ option would be a
simpler one: upgrade the old server in place.

Now a couple of things about this: first off, while it¹s supported by
Microsoft, but just I¹m not a big fan of anything that munges around the
database format, so personally I don¹t care for in place upgrades.  Having
said that, they almost always work just fine.  If you want to be extra safe,
meld the two methods: install another server, move the mailboxes, then
upgrade in place with no user mail on the server.  When done, move the
mailboxes back.  I like that better if you absolutely must have the same
name.

Which brings me to the question others have asked: Why?  Servers are
injected and removed from enterprise environments all the time, and from a
client perspective, the name of the server really doesn¹t matter as long as
you give a little time for the directory lookups to correct the profiles for
you, so why is this so critical to your goals?

Rick



On 2/23/05 10:16 AM, "Paul_Lemonidis@xxxxxxxxxxx"
<Paul_Lemonidis@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> http://www.MSExchange.org/
> Hi Conley
>  
> I see no other way around this problem as renaming a machine hosting Exchange
> will break Exchange totally. The services simply won't start. The only way to
> then resolve that issue is to completely uninstall Exchange and reinstall thus
> losing all your users and their data. You could then theoretically having
> backed up all the mailboxes from the original Exchange installation to PST
> files using EXMERGE.EXE restore them on the new machine but there is an issue
> with that. Namely the amount of space needed to hold the users mailbox data
> will increase very significantly as single instance storage will be lost.
>  
> Hope that helps? Please don't hesitate to get back to me if I can help you
> further. 
>  
> Regards,
>  
> Paul Lemonidis.
>  
>>  
>> ----- Original Message -----
>>  
>> From:  Conley  P. Shairrick <mailto:cshairrick@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>  
>> To: Paul_Lemonidis@xxxxxxxxxxx
>>  
>> Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2005 2:15  PM
>>  
>> Subject: Exchange Server upgrade
>>  
>> 
>>  
>>  
>> 
>> Paul, 
>>  
>>  
>>  
>>     We are  not wanting to change the name of our exchange server because we
>> have that  name setup in OWA, our DNS setting (we run a authoritative DNS),
>> our proxy  server has some setting with Exchange server name in them.  Just
>> would me  easy keep the same name.  Thanks
>>  
>>  
>>  
>>  
>>  
>> Hi Conley
>>  
>>  
>>  
>> As it stands no. The only  thing I can think of is to add a temporary third
>> server. Move all the  mailboxes and public folders to it. Decommission and
>> remove all references to  the first server. Then build the new (third) server
>> with your new server name.  Having installed the third server then move all
>> the mailboxes to it and remove  the second temporary server.
>>  
>>  
>>  
>> As I think you can imagine  this is far from simple and will take a good deal
>> of time to do. Why do you  need to keep the same server name? If you are
>> concerned about having to  recreate Outlook profiles as a result of your new
>> server this should not be an  issue.
>>  
>>  
>>  
>> If anyone else can shed an  more light on this or knows of any third part
>> products (I very much doubt  there are any to be honest) that may do it
>> please feel free to enlighten  us.
>>  
>>  
>>  
>> Many thanks in  advance.
>>  
>>  
>>  
>> Regards,
>>  
>>  
>>  
>> Paul  Lemonidis.
>>  
>>  
>>  
>>  
>>  
>> Conley  Shairrick
>> Network Administrator
>>  
>> Cross Oil Refining & Marketing,  Inc.
>>  
>> Office: 870.864.8688
>>  
>> Fax:      870.864.8689
>>  
>> Cell:     870.866.6197
>>  
>> Email:  conleys@xxxxxxxxxxxx
>>  
>>  
>>  
>>  
>>  
>>  
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