1st Exchange Roll out

[Smooth23]

Hey all,

I'm an MCSE 2003 (Messaging) certified Network Administrator and planning/testing (in vmware) the rollout of Exchange Server 2003.

I have the first exchange server online on the production network with basic setup i.e. recipient policies, SMTP virtual server settings, mailbox policy settings and other such things.

The plan of action is to get the exchange system working alongside the existing Ipswitch Imail system. The existing Ipswitch system is on its own DSL line, we have a separate DSL line for the exchange system, same ISP.

Objective is to have email delivery to both mailing systems. I first approached the ISP, investigating the options of creating an additional MX record for same domain, different public IP address (other DSL line) but same metric value...! But then discovered that an incoming email will choose either of the two routes! It cannot get delivered to both mailing systems this way!

soooo,

Second solution I have is to leave all incoming email on the Ipswitch system, but setup forwarding, on a per user basis, to the exchange system. I have the following documented for this:

DNS:
Configure a new Sub Zone, exchange.domain.co.uk.
Set MX record for exchange.domain.co.uk to the exchange server.
Make sure exchange can resolve the MX record to domain.co.uk and that it points to the mail gateway or the ipswitch box.

Exchange Settings:
Add new address, @exchange.domain.co.uk which is in addition to @domain.co.uk address in the recipient policy.
Ensure exchange is responsible for all mail sent to @exchange.domain.co.uk but not for @domain.co.uk.
Ensure that @domain.co.uk is the primary SMTP address for the internal recipients.

IPSwitch:
Setup IPSwitch IMail for peering so that IMail and Exchange can serve user accounts on the same domain.

http://support.ipswitch.com/kb/IM-20031209-DM01.htm

I have this setup in VMware right now and experiencing problems.

Does anyone have any experience with getting exchange to work with other mailing systems and can you recommend another way forward.

Many Thanks

 

[58sniper]

When doing migrations, I can't imagine why you'd want both accepting the same mail. You have mail going to one, and if the mailbox resides on the other, it moves on to that server. Things are a little different because of no native connectors for IMAIL. But the principal is still the same.

What's the reasoning for wanting mail to go to both?

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[xmsre]

Have the mx point to exchange, then send unresolved mail to Imail a la

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/823158.

During the migration, if the user is on Exchange it will get delivered there; if not, it goes to imail. When the migration is over, remove the forwarding.

For imail, mailmig should work fine; it's an IMAP migration. That'll take care of all the mail on the server. If users are pulling mail down to the client, then you'll need a way to get it off the client and into Exchange/outlook if you want to keep it.

How many users are you talking about?

 

[Smooth23]

Hey guys,

5&sniper - reason for this is IMAIL will be online still for around six months after the migration plus for fail back (not me but a colleague).

Personally I don't like it, it's messy, emails are duplicated and disk space cost is high!

Xmsre - Yes that is an option. The existing email is IMAP4 so this could be setup in Outlook 07 with the exchange mailbox then mail can be copied across to exch, although this will not be advised to the users. so I could then change the mx to point to exchange so all incoming email will be delivered to exchange. User's are then on Exchange and have access to their old IMAIL mailbox!

But why do I need to forward unresolved email to the IMAIL system? Is this because exchange users will be defined as, for example: %g.%s@domain.co.uk and IMAIL system there is no convention?

Thanks.

 

[xmsre]

If all mail for mydomain.com goes to exchange, and user@mydomain.com is not yet migrated to the exchange server, then exchange forwards the unresolved recipient to imail (the assumption is the user has not yet been migrated). If the user does not exist on imail either, imail NDRs.

 

[Smooth23]

Ok, this is looking good. will setup in vmware before going live.

thanks for all feedback, was valuable and i will post back how i get on.n

many thanks

 

[Smooth23]

Hey,

Just re-installed web componants and web conferencing and all working and no longer getting error with validation.

only thing now is that when i search a group in the communicator and try to send message i get 'group does not contain any members'

anyway i look more into this tomorrow now, need to get this office...

thanks for all you help btw )

 

[58sniper]

Say what?

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[Smooth23]

whoops, that was meant for the OCS 2007 forum... lol