Primary DC move

[elcephus]

Hello All,

I have a situation here. I have Exchange and AD running on the same server, please dont ask why. Anyways, right now I am looking for the best practice in removing AD from that server and putting it on its own server. I have Windows 2003 server and was wondering what would be the best way to get this done. Thanks.

 

[mrdenny]

Removing AD should be a fairly simple job.

Setup your new domain controller. dcpromo that server and set it up as a domain controller. Move all the fizmo roles to the new server. Let the domain settle for a day or two.

dcpromo the exchange server and remove AD.

If you are moving your DNS server be sure to update all the servers, workstations, DHCP, etc to the new DNS servers IP.

Denny
MCSA (2003) / MCDBA (SQL 2000)

--Anything is possible. All it takes is a little research. (Me)

http://www.mrdenny.com

 

[markdmac]

Sorry but the information Denny provided will not work. It would be accurate except that Exchange is already installed.

Exchange will prevent DCPROMO from running. You can not run DCPROMO to promote or downgrade a server to/from a DC once Exchange already exists on the box. You will need to first Uninstall Exchange, then you can use the above suggestion.

I would recommend that instead you should purchase a new server to be used for Exchange. Setup Exchange on that box, use Move Mailbox wizard to migrate the mail over, then redirect mail delivery to the new server. Once mail is flowing directly to the new server you can uninstall exchange and leave the DC as is. So long as you leave both Exchange servers running for a day, all your users Outlook profiles will automatically update, so you will not need to reconfigure the clients profiles in Outlook.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

 

[mrdenny]

I stand corrected, sorry for providing bad info.

Denny
MCSA (2003) / MCDBA (SQL 2000)

--Anything is possible. All it takes is a little research. (Me)

http://www.mrdenny.com

 

[Seaspray0]

I've noticed that in our organization, exchange is much more of a resource hog than what's used by our DC. I would be inclined to move exchange to new hardware and leave the DC in place.

A+/MCP/MCSE/MCDBA