Move Exchange 2003 box from one domain/forest to another 1

[ntfsDOTsys]

Hello all,

We are purchasing another company. They have exchange 2003. We have exchange 2003. The company we are purchasing are going to keep their company name and email address. BUT, we want to have all their users log into our domain (Their domain is going to go away). We also want both our exchange servers to sync with each other for disaster recovery purposes.

Does anybody know a Microsoft document or something that will help with this? I will be the first to admit that exchange is not one of my strong points.

Thanks,

--me



A+, Network+, MCP
========================================>
My first computer was the Atari 400 (heh)

 

[58sniper]

We also want both our exchange servers to sync with each other for disaster recovery purposes.

Can you clarify your needs in this regard?

You should be able to create a trust between the two, use ADMT to move objects from one to the other. But you're comment about having the Exchange servers "sync" needs clarification. If you want one server to take over when the other "fails", you're looking at a third party product. (unless you're going to cluster, but that requires rebuilding everything).

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Microsoft Exchange MVP

 

[ntfsDOTsys]

My boss said he wanted to be able to have two exchange boxes talk to each other and "sync" but they would both be for different mail domains... Am I barking up the wrong tree? Can this be accomplished with clustering?

Thanks for your reply!

--me

A+, Network+, MCP
========================================>
My first computer was the Atari 400 (heh)

 

[58sniper]

Well, that doesn't help much. Two servers can certainly talk to each other. If you setup the correct forward lookup zones in DNS, they would even talk over the local wire. But "sync" needs clarification as to what he's meaning. That's too ambiguous.

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Microsoft Exchange MVP

 

[RichardHuang]

Sniper is right. The "sync" can't be done between two exchange servers unless you use clusters.

 

[ntfsDOTsys]

Let me try and not be so vague.

I want mail for the one company we are buying to be delivered to the server at site "A" and the mail for our server to continue to come to our location at site "B". Both Exchange servers will be in the same domain. We will have a Metro Ethernet link connecting the two sites. Both sites / companies will get mail for two domains - ie @companyA.com and @companyB.com.


We want both server to share / replicate the same database, with the option for fail-over in case one site gets hit by a hurricane or a fire, etc.

Hope that helps? From what reading I have done and the answers so far it seems like the following needs to be done (high level explanation):

1) Upgrade both servers to Server 2003 Enterprise Edition
2) Upgrade both Exchange 2003 servers to Exchange 2003 Enterprise edition
3) Use "Cluster Administrator" to create an Exchange 2003 cluster running in an "Active/Active" config (for now, cause we don't have a 3rd server to make it "Active/Passive".
4) The database at each location would live on the local NAS box

If I am missing something I would love some feedback. Thanks for all your help!

--me



A+, Network+, MCP
========================================>
My first computer was the Atari 400 (heh)

 

[58sniper]

You're not going to be doing clustering to remote servers. They need to be in the same physical location since the connect to the same shared data.

You want users to have accounts in both domains, but you want all email at one domain on one server and all email for the other domain on the other server? That's completely inefficient. You can't have two Exchange accounts configured in one Outlook profile. Plus, that would chew up a ton of bandwidth.

You could split the users geographically, configure both in the same admin group, with both domains specified. But that doesn't solve the fault tolerance issue. For that, with Exchange 2003, you need to use a third party software like Never Fail or Double Take.

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Microsoft Exchange MVP

 

[JimWells]

With Exchange Enteprise edition, you could maybe configure one online storage group on each server, for that location - then use DoubleTake or CA XOSoft to continuously replicate the data back and forth, and bring up the replicated database at the 'remote' Exchange server in case of problems...

But you'll still need to do some type of migration to collapse the other AD domain/forest containing an Exchange server.

 

[ntfsDOTsys]

Hey guys thanks for your replies. Yes we are going to have ONE Windows domain that users log into. Not two. But, we are going to have two @mail domains.

Remember the point is to receive mail for two @mail domains on 2 separate boxes. The point is to SAVE bandwidth cause if it all came in here at site "B" then all their mail would have to go across the metro link to site "A" and would that be horribly slow and chew up bandwidth? Our company get huges PDF files all day long... If we can have our @mail domain email come in at each our site to our local exchange servers wouldn't that be quicker and MORE efficient?

If clustering would not work couldn't we do the following:

1) Move all users id's and mailboxes from the one windows domain (the one we are buying) into our windows domain and our local exchange server. Now all mailboxes and user id's are only in xyz.com windows domain.
2) Rebuild exchange server at remote location and join it to our xyz.com windows domain.
3) Create a 2nd storage group for the new @mail domain (the new @mail domain we just bought) on remote exchange server and move all those mailboxes back to that exchange server into the new storage group.
4) Open up active directory users and computers, double click each user ID, click on the "email addresses" tab and put an alias smtp address of the new company mail domain on each of those new users.
5) We would keep the MX records for each @mail domain pointing to each individual exchange box which should keep mail flowing properly to each exchange box.
6) We would then use eVault (

http://www.evault.com)

to backup each exchange database at each location in case of a disaster.

What do you think?

--me




A+, Network+, MCP
========================================>
My first computer was the Atari 400 (heh)

 

[58sniper]

But if you want people to have email addresses on both systems, you'll have clients accessing email on both systems. And that can't happen.

As for 4), you'd never do this manually. You'd adjust your recipient policy.

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Microsoft Exchange MVP

 

[ntfsDOTsys]

Can you tell I am trying to do this without a 3rd party solution?

Well if that cant happen then it is either have all email come into one server or use a 3rd party product?

--me

A+, Network+, MCP
========================================>
My first computer was the Atari 400 (heh)

 

[58sniper]

Yep. You don't mention how many people are in the other site. But using Outlook 2003 in cached mode for the users in that site will keep your bandwidth usage low (after the initial sync).

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Microsoft Exchange MVP

 

[ntfsDOTsys]

Wow that might actually work? Hmmm......

About 70 people at the other site.

Thanks for all your help. I will award stars to you. I tried emailing you a request to but perhaps the email address on your mvp profile page is out of date.

--me

A+, Network+, MCP
========================================>
My first computer was the Atari 400 (heh)

 

[58sniper]

Actually, I don't accept unsolicited email to the address in my MVP profile. I would have to engage my employer before accepting anything. Which means I'd have to bill you.....

Yes. That will work, and 70 users is no big deal for a good, stable, connection to the other site.

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Microsoft Exchange MVP

 

[ntfsDOTsys]

I had offered to pay money in my email

Thanks again.

A+, Network+, MCP
========================================>
My first computer was the Atari 400 (heh)