Need help setting up an Ex2k3 test lab???

[fitzgeraldjw]

My comapny is soon to go from an AD environment running Exchange 5.5 to Windows Server 2003, running Exchange 2003. I am the Exchange Administrator and for whatever reason will most likely not get any formal trainng on any newer versions of Exchange. I have six computers I can use to build a test lab, but I am not sure exactly how I can set that up to maximize my testing and training and simulate our current and future environments with such minimal resources. Currently, we are running 49 Exchange Servers, with over 85,000 recipients. Has anybody setup an Exchange 2003 lab before, with this few of computers, and if so, what approaches or setups did you take.

 

[gcdhnjgfhfgsxh]

Hi

6 Should be more than enough to test. Firstly setup an active directory controller with DNS. Second setup however many exchange servers are required 2 or 3 should be sufficient to test correctly. Create some users in the domain. setup some client machines and test the functionality and configuration that you are likely to have when you install 4x servers.

This is the way i would probably test various configurations and i think that in your case there is no right and wrong answer to how it should be set up. My advice would be to look at what configuration will serve your company best and try to emulate that as closley as possible in the test scenario

Hope this is of help

Dave

http://affy.dynu.net

http://affybetatest.dynu.net

 

[james3838]

Also take a look at

http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/techinfo/interop/55.asp

for some great upgrade scenario information.

Ideally you will want to start out with an enviroment that represents what you have today, and then figure out the steps you need to go through to get to what you want tommorrow.

Make sure to take detailed notes of both successes and failures so that you can remember what the best practices will be for your enviroment.