THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS "DIVA"

So on the day that TechEd Berlin announced the availability of Exchange 2010, I'm doing a test migration from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007.  The funny thing is a lot of the keynote videos showcased Outlook 2010 features in conjunction with Exchange 2010.  So let's get the messy questions out of the way:

So now that I am migrating to SBS 2008, what happened to Outlook 2007?  Well it's like this, you see the Exchange folks unbundled the Outlook cal that used to be provided with Exchange and unless you are a software assurance customer, you don't get Outlook 2007 as part of the Exchange deployment.  Personally I think this was a dumb move because to me, as much as Microsoft wants us to move into the cloud, they also should reinforce the 'sticky'.  That is how well the Outlook on the desktop combined with the Exchange works together.  I call this the "sticky".

Mind you this is AFTER Office 2007 SP2 and the performance patch included in that.  When you install SP2 the very first time after launching, the Outlook will rebuild the database.  I still am a fan of www.xobni.com as an add on to help in searching email.  I've seen google wave and while it's interesting, the thoughts of forensics, rights and permissions and dragging Attorneys off of AOL means that it's okay but gang, don't get hyped up into the hype just because it's Google.  The collaboative platform still has a ways to go and issues to be ironed out including offline access and smaller form factors.   Just because the Scobleizers of the world are in hype mode, let's see it in action with real people using it first before drawing conclusions.

So anyway, we're ready to move mailboxes.  Unlike the demo at TechEd Berlin, we're kinda only planning to do this once and not willy nilly move about mailboxes on different servers.  Also keep in mind that Exchange 2010's mailbox database is different from Exchange 2007 so any future "upgrades" to Exchange 2010, Exchange 2020 (just kidding) will be a move mailbox again.  Even in BPOS it's a bit funky because at the current time the AD replicator tool runs on 32 bit only and not on a DC.  Okay.  And Exchange 2007/2010 is... 64bit now right?  And our servers are 64 bit as well?  Yeah that one didn't make sense either when I heard it.

Anyway back to the migration....

We go back to the migration instructions (let's not kid ourselves...we're the wizard here, there's no "wizard"), and keep in mind that we can do this as the box is live.  That said, it's wise these days to have a mail hygiene that is also a email storage device as a backup MX to you should something occur they will hold the email.

The Official SBS Blog : SBS Migrations: Troubleshooting Moving Public Folder Replicas:
http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2009/06/21/sbs-migrations-troubleshooting-moving-public-folder-replicas.aspx

Also review this post but remember they are talking about that OTHER smtp connector, not the SBS one where you probably put in a smart host forward.

That one there probably doesn't have the smart host setting that will stop a public folder replication. 

A reminder here that it's wise to go to an attached workstation and park out a copy of the public folder content.

Now what about doing this on a live machine?  That is the unique thing about this... you can.

Now here's where the "wizard" gets unwizardy.  As they point you to a help file.  We've already discussed that we should tell folks to delete all old unneeded email ahead of time. 

If you've installed Forefront on the SBS 2008, keep in mind that that is enabled from the get go and thus may (will) blocks file types that you may not want to block.

Also don't forget about the 2 gig gotcha --

1. The Exchange Message Store has a 2GB limit at installation time.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb201753.aspx

For purposes of migration we're going to untick all of those in the Exchange 2007 console:

Similarly I'll do the same on the Public folders just to be safe.  I know they aren't that big but we can come back and put limits later.

1. The Standard User Role has a user quota for Exchange of 2GB.'

I'll go into the Standard user property and untick that box 

Once you've done that you can check the setting has been done right here:

How to Configure Storage Quotas for a Mailbox: Exchange 2007 Help:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998353.aspx

The Official SBS Blog : How Do I Change Message Size Limits in Exchange 2007?:
http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2008/10/28/how-do-i-change-message-size-limits-in-exchange-2007.aspx
And don't forget to change message limits later on for sending .... then I'll pull out a bit of Powershell (gag me with a spoon)

Go back to our migration checklist on the server, restart the Exchange migration topic (click next)

 Now this is where I prefer the David Overton SBS 2008 migation book because it gives me actual screen shots of what I'm supposed to be looking at.

I do use an email forwarder to www.exchangedefender.com and will need to set up the email forwarder on the SBS 2008 (where there is a wizard to do so).

But our goal here is to document and delete.  We don't need to migrate any pop connector settings.. so yea!  We don't have to do that.

Now we hop back to the Exchange management console on the SBS 2008 box.

We go to the Organization Configuration, then to the Mailbox, then to Offline address book, right mouse click and move

And we move the OAB over to the new server.

Don't forget to go into the properties of the moved OAB and tick the box to enable web based distribution and on the green "+" button to add the new SBS 2008 box.  (yes right about now is when you go.... yeah this ain't a wizard... this sucker is a checklist of tasks).

Now on to the mailboxes.

We go into the Receipient configuration, then into mailbox and check out all of those "legacy" mailboxes.  Those are what need to be moved.  Only the brand new SBS 2008 admin that you may have had to build to log into the SBS 2008 box is a normal new mailbox.

Hit control and highlight all the ones you want moved.  Right mouse click and hit move Mailbox.

Now unlike the person who demo'd moving mailboxes in Exchange 2010 at Teched Berlin, we're only planning to do this once and not move mailboxes around so much that that's a "feature".  We browse to our SBS 2008 server, choose the SBS 2008 "Mailbox Database" ..not the 2003 Mailbox store (and as an aside why do they call it a "store" anyway?  It's not like we buy things there, but I digress).  Click ok and click next.

Philip uses the setting of 100 for potentially corrupt messages http://blog.mpecsinc.ca/2009/06/sbs-2003-to-sbs-2008-migration-guide.html, David picked 9999.  I could split the different at 5000, but I'll try 100 since I ran the ESEUTIL stuff.

Choose the new domain controller and the new global catalog server (your new SBS 2008) and click next.

Normally we'll want to move email over a weekend or over night when there's less going on at the server.  We want to move this email now so we won't set up a time, we'll do this immediately, clicking that option and click next..

We're now ready to go and moving mailboxes...  Click move.

This is where how well your users listened to you when you said CLEAN YOUR MAILBOXES OUT!. 

Also if a mailbox fails, increase the corruption amount and try again.

I'll report back how long it took.  Until next time... stay tuned for the next chapter in "How the server migrated".