Migrating NT4/Exch5.5 to W2K3 and E2k3
Discussion
Afternoon all.
I look after a company based at 3 locations in Scotland. Each location has 1 NT4 server doing core network services and file and print. Server at head office is PDC, other 2 servers are BDCs; we only have a single NT domain. Each NT server is also running Exchange 5.5. This is one Exchange organisation with 3 sites (1 server per site). The 3 locations are linked by WAN. All web browsing, FTP, and external e-mail (IMC on exchange server at head office) is done via a single Internet connection from head office to public Internet.
I'm starting to investigate the feasibility of upgrading my company from NT4/Exch5.5 to W2K3 and E2K3 and I'm looking for a bit of advice from anyone that's been there already.
I have no experience of Windows 2000/2003 server or AD. I am very much stuck in the NT4 era, so I'm starting cold. I've spent the week reading various TechNet articles, white papers, and MS documents, and quite frankly I'm terrified, but also very excited at all the learning to be done. How realistic is it for me to tackle this migration without the aid of consultants and/or weeks of MS techie training?
I would be very grateful to hear from anyone who's been in a similar situation and how they approached this challenge.
I look after a company based at 3 locations in Scotland. Each location has 1 NT4 server doing core network services and file and print. Server at head office is PDC, other 2 servers are BDCs; we only have a single NT domain. Each NT server is also running Exchange 5.5. This is one Exchange organisation with 3 sites (1 server per site). The 3 locations are linked by WAN. All web browsing, FTP, and external e-mail (IMC on exchange server at head office) is done via a single Internet connection from head office to public Internet.
I'm starting to investigate the feasibility of upgrading my company from NT4/Exch5.5 to W2K3 and E2K3 and I'm looking for a bit of advice from anyone that's been there already.
I have no experience of Windows 2000/2003 server or AD. I am very much stuck in the NT4 era, so I'm starting cold. I've spent the week reading various TechNet articles, white papers, and MS documents, and quite frankly I'm terrified, but also very excited at all the learning to be done. How realistic is it for me to tackle this migration without the aid of consultants and/or weeks of MS techie training?
I would be very grateful to hear from anyone who's been in a similar situation and how they approached this challenge.
Your doing the right things now and you should be able to do it yourself without too much trouble. It sjust getting the steps right and breaking it down into chunks. I did the same upgrade and its not that hard.
There are some things you need to take into account like exchange 5.5 won't run on server2k3 so you can't do inplace upgrades of your pdc and then upgrade exchange to exchange2k3 so you have to put a temp NT4 pdc and upgrade that or move exchange off your pdc to upgrade your domain to AD (I used a temp PDC as I was moving to new hardware too). Do you have an outline plan yet of what you're going to do?
There are some things you need to take into account like exchange 5.5 won't run on server2k3 so you can't do inplace upgrades of your pdc and then upgrade exchange to exchange2k3 so you have to put a temp NT4 pdc and upgrade that or move exchange off your pdc to upgrade your domain to AD (I used a temp PDC as I was moving to new hardware too). Do you have an outline plan yet of what you're going to do?
malman said:
Your doing the right things now and you should be able to do it yourself without too much trouble. It sjust getting the steps right and breaking it down into chunks. I did the same upgrade and its not that hard.
There are some things you need to take into account like exchange 5.5 won't run on server2k3 so you can't do inplace upgrades of your pdc and then upgrade exchange to exchange2k3 so you have to put a temp NT4 pdc and upgrade that or move exchange off your pdc to upgrade your domain to AD (I used a temp PDC as I was moving to new hardware too). Do you have an outline plan yet of what you're going to do?
Hi malman
I'm just starting to sketch out my outline plan. I like the temp PDC idea. How does this sound. New NT4 server for main office and promote to PDC, leaving Exchange 5.5 on what is now BDC. Upgrade PDC to W2K3 with AD, install E2K3 into Exchange 5.5 organisation, and migrate mailboxes. Now scrub original server and reinstall as NT4 BDC at first branch office. Upgrade this new BDC to W2K3, install E2K3 into Exchange 5.5 organisation, and migrate mailboxes. Repeat process at second branch office. Finally remove last Exchange 5.5 server from organisation and move to "pure" W2K3 and E2K3 environment.
This would let me concentrate on upgrading one office at a time and only have to invest in one new server. My 3 current servers are all IBM eServer X200 1.28GHz PIII with 1.5GB of RAM and 2x32GB SCSI HDDs which seem to satisfy the recommended spec for W2K3.
What do you think?
I definately recommend getting hold of a box to use as a staging machine - I'd not want to be running a production system on machines that have had in-place upgrades. There is a technet article on using the 'swing' method to upgrade from NT to 200x and a similar one for Exchange.
Don't forget to budget for hardware - personally I'd be running the Directory Services on a seperate box at each location to get the best performance, but ultimately it will depend on the amount of users you're servicing and budgets.
If you're just beginning to get into 200x, it's pretty different from NT4. I did my MSCE in NT4 and re-did the whole lot for 2000 although I'll not be doing any more MS certification as I think it's totally pointless. Nearly everything under Active Directory is significantly better, but it's far less tolerant of heath robinson setup. Get your DNS working properly and things usually go smoothly, get it wrong and you'll be fighting a bad system for quite some time.
What you're planning to do isn't technically difficult, but do your homework and come up with a plan first. I took a 12 server system from NT4 / Ex 55 / Proxy and SQL 6.5 as well as the usual file / print etc to 2003 / Ex 2k3 / ISA and SQL 2000 in 8 days. The most important thing is to always leave yourself a route back in case a machine doesn't play ball. Using a staging machine allows you to do this as you're not flattening the original machine until you've moved all the services onto the temporary box.
Good luck, it's a nice little project you've got yourself there!
Phil.
Don't forget to budget for hardware - personally I'd be running the Directory Services on a seperate box at each location to get the best performance, but ultimately it will depend on the amount of users you're servicing and budgets.
If you're just beginning to get into 200x, it's pretty different from NT4. I did my MSCE in NT4 and re-did the whole lot for 2000 although I'll not be doing any more MS certification as I think it's totally pointless. Nearly everything under Active Directory is significantly better, but it's far less tolerant of heath robinson setup. Get your DNS working properly and things usually go smoothly, get it wrong and you'll be fighting a bad system for quite some time.
What you're planning to do isn't technically difficult, but do your homework and come up with a plan first. I took a 12 server system from NT4 / Ex 55 / Proxy and SQL 6.5 as well as the usual file / print etc to 2003 / Ex 2k3 / ISA and SQL 2000 in 8 days. The most important thing is to always leave yourself a route back in case a machine doesn't play ball. Using a staging machine allows you to do this as you're not flattening the original machine until you've moved all the services onto the temporary box.
Good luck, it's a nice little project you've got yourself there!
Phil.
Sounds like a plan, be aware though if you buy a brand new server installing NT4 on it may not be straight forward as you think! Ive done a few NT4 migrations now and one of the most difficult steps is getting all the drivers for NT on the new server. You want it to be the temp PDC as when you upgrade it will be the business domain controller holding all the FSMO roles. A top tip is also to build a PC with NT, make it a BDC and make sure you sync it and switch it off just before you do an upgrade. Should things go wrong at least you can activate it and get your domain back easily. Also have user manger open on your domain controllers when you upgrade as I have seen alto of strage things happen to user rights once upgraded and you may need to see what user should belong in which group afterwards.
Make sure your DNS is tip top as well as 2003 releys completely on it.
Make sure your DNS is tip top as well as 2003 releys completely on it.
Hi Phil
I hate in-place upgrades; there's nothing like a nice clean install. I'll try and find that TechNet article on the "swing" method. I've never heard that expression before. I've only got about 50 users at each site and a very small budget, so one server per site is all I can stretch to.
I'm going to get a couple of good books on AD, W2K3 and E2K3; I like the SAMs range usually. I would love to do the MCSE but there's no way my company could stretch to it.
Thanks for the words of encouragement.
I hate in-place upgrades; there's nothing like a nice clean install. I'll try and find that TechNet article on the "swing" method. I've never heard that expression before. I've only got about 50 users at each site and a very small budget, so one server per site is all I can stretch to.
I'm going to get a couple of good books on AD, W2K3 and E2K3; I like the SAMs range usually. I would love to do the MCSE but there's no way my company could stretch to it.
Thanks for the words of encouragement.
Upgrade to Ex 2003:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/82189
Upgrade to Ex 2000:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/26487
Upgrade Considerations:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/29592
Phil.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/82189
Upgrade to Ex 2000:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/26487
Upgrade Considerations:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/29592
Phil.
225 said:
Sounds like a plan, be aware though if you buy a brand new server installing NT4 on it may not be straight forward as you think! Ive done a few NT4 migrations now and one of the most difficult steps is getting all the drivers for NT on the new server. You want it to be the temp PDC as when you upgrade it will be the business domain controller holding all the FSMO roles. A top tip is also to build a PC with NT, make it a BDC and make sure you sync it and switch it off just before you do an upgrade. Should things go wrong at least you can activate it and get your domain back easily. Also have user manger open on your domain controllers when you upgrade as I have seen alto of strage things happen to user rights once upgraded and you may need to see what user should belong in which group afterwards.
Make sure your DNS is tip top as well as 2003 releys completely on it.
Hi 225
Good advice. I particularly like the offline BDC idea.
BliarOut said:
How many users in total? If it's not that many ExMig might be an option worth considering. Depends on how much downtime you can factor in.
I only have 150 users in total; about 50 at each site. I would aim to do one office per weekend for 3 consecutive weekends. What's ExMig? I've not heard of that option.
PJLarge said:
Upgrade to Ex 2003:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/82189
Upgrade to Ex 2000:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/26487
Upgrade Considerations:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/29592
Phil.
Thanks, Phil.
That'll give me something to read on Monday when I'm bored by 10am.
Another good one to use is exmerge assuming you do not have too many users. It exports mails to a pst then you can merge everything back in, its easy to use but be aware it increases the size of the mail stores due to there being many copies of the same mail as opposed to pointers.
As mentioned you can do upgrades easily enough but a clean install is always preferable, but in the real world we know buying new hw etc is not always an option.
As mentioned you can do upgrades easily enough but a clean install is always preferable, but in the real world we know buying new hw etc is not always an option.
pcwilson said:The Exchange migration wizard... Basically dumps all your mailboxes into .PST files and then imports them into a new Ex site... Handy when it isn't worth setting up connectors etc. Runs at the server ned, not the client.
How many users in total? If it's not that many ExMig might be an option worth considering. Depends on how much downtime you can factor in.
I only have 150 users in total; about 50 at each site. I would aim to do one office per weekend for 3 consecutive weekends. What's ExMig? I've not heard of that option.
A good choice if you want to migrate into a greenfield site with not too many users, the only downside of going greenfield is all your users profiles
Just one other option to consider if your current NT4 setup is a bit pants and you want a fresh start while retaining all your mail/appointments etc.
225 said:
Another good one to use is exmerge assuming you do not have too many users. It exports mails to a pst then you can merge everything back in, its easy to use but be aware it increases the size of the mail stores due to there being many copies of the same mail as opposed to pointers.
As mentioned you can do upgrades easily enough but a clean install is always preferable, but in the real world we know buying new hw etc is not always an option.
I've used ExMerge before to move mailboxes when we've had guys move from one site to another. Found it quite useful for the odd mailbox here and there, although I did manage to lose the guys contacts.
The trouble with Exmerge is that you'll loose the single instance data when you bring all the stuff into the new system so your database could well be significantly bigger than it was before. It's not the end of the world with E2k3's storage limits being much higher, but something to thing about. Also, IIRC Exmerge doesn't touch your Public Folder heirarchy either.
Phil.
Phil.
BliarOut said:
How many users in total? If it's not that many ExMig might be an option worth considering. Depends on how much downtime you can factor in.
I only have 150 users in total; about 50 at each site. I would aim to do one office per weekend for 3 consecutive weekends. What's ExMig? I've not heard of that option.
A good choice if you want to migrate into a greenfield site with not too many users, the only downside of going greenfield is all your users profiles
Just one other option to consider if your current NT4 setup is a bit pants and you want a fresh start while retaining all your mail/appointments etc.
Thanks, Bliarout. When I install my new E2K3 server into my existing Exchange 5.5 organisation at each site, I assume I add it as a new server in the existing site? Which begs the question, what tool do I use to move the mailboxes from Exchange 5.5 to E2K3?
PJLarge said:
The trouble with Exmerge is that you'll loose the single instance data when you bring all the stuff into the new system so your database could well be significantly bigger than it was before. It's not the end of the world with E2k3's storage limits being much higher, but something to thing about. Also, IIRC Exmerge doesn't touch your Public Folder heirarchy either.
Phil.
I rely very heavily on single instance storage. We send a lot of messages with very large file attachments, which more often that not get forwarded on to someone else internally, with a couple of CCs on each message just for good measure. Without SIS my servers would have ground to a halt years ago. One of the main drivers for upgrading to E2K3 is the 16TB limit. I spend too much time chastising people for the size of their mailboxes. I've recently started to impose mailbox size limits so I'm not flavour of the month at the moment. Wait 'til I limit the size of messages too; I'll probably be hung, drawn and quartered. I'm pushing FTP as hard as I can as an alternative to e-mailing files around, but e-mail is just too darn convenient.
>> Edited by pcwilson on Friday 14th April 21:40
pcwilson said:
How many users in total? If it's not that many ExMig might be an option worth considering. Depends on how much downtime you can factor in.
I only have 150 users in total; about 50 at each site. I would aim to do one office per weekend for 3 consecutive weekends. What's ExMig? I've not heard of that option.
A good choice if you want to migrate into a greenfield site with not too many users, the only downside of going greenfield is all your users profiles
Just one other option to consider if your current NT4 setup is a bit pants and you want a fresh start while retaining all your mail/appointments etc.
Thanks, Bliarout. When I install my new E2K3 server into my existing Exchange 5.5 organisation at each site, I assume I add it as a new server in the existing site? Which begs the question, what tool do I use to move the mailboxes from Exchange 5.5 to E2K3?
In a cutover of your size I would consider installing a new organisation and using the ADC to swing mailboxes at your leisure using the move mailbox wizard... Plenty of opportunities to roll back if it all doesn't work.
Common bloopers are listed here.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/55526
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