Bought a company, merging their exchange with ours

[captaincrunch00]

Hi there,

We are running 2003 exchange and as the title says, we purchased another company.

I've got a couple just general questions for now, then I'll need some technical advice once I figure out what direction to go.

Merging two Exchange servers... Hard, easy, or even possible?

Instead of merging, would it be possible to set the two up in a cluster instead in the same domain as we will basically double our users?

 

[58sniper]

Not nearly enough info for us to say for sure.

Combining two forests and domains is tricky enough. Adding Exchange on it makes for even more fun.

There are some really simple ways of doing the Exchange piece, including just exmerging the mailboxes out on the old server, and importing them into new accounts on your server.

But you can also create trusts between the two AD forests and use ADMT to move things around.

Either way requires a far amount of planning.

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Microsoft Exchange MVP

 

[captaincrunch00]

Name the info you need and I'll provide it.

I just didnt want to sketch out both networks because that's far too much info

I guess I should get reading a bit more... I honestly think the higher ups are planning on outsourcing most of it, so I've just got to get the connectivity stuff done, servers moved, data converted... all that stuff.

 

[58sniper]

Bringing in a consultant might not be a bad idea for a project like this.

But, basically, you would need to provide connectivity between the two forests, and then create a two-way trust.

Once that's done, the Microsoft ADMT tool will allow you to migrate objects between the forests.

There are some caveats, though, such as the functional level of each forest, any schema extensions that may need to be done, capacity planning, etc.

In some instances, attempting to merge the two servers into one might be better served by a new, powerful server to handle both organizations.

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Microsoft Exchange MVP

 

[captaincrunch00]

Thanks for the advice, I'll begin reading up on some of the stuff you mentioned!

 

[ntinlin]

We have been using the Quest Migration Wizards quite successfully for doing AD and Exchange migrations.

However while the individual license costs for the tools aren't too bad the cost of the consultants that they insist you use to get the Quest environment all set up, pilot group migrated etc. are VERY expensive.
They also seem to be trying to get you to buy monitoring tools like Message stats for ongoing use which you may or may not need. Again each license isn't excessive but if you have a lot of existing mailboxes then it mounts up.

Neill