Installation of Exchange Server 2010

Before I could go ahead with the installation of Exchange Server 2010, I would like to let you know that scope of this article –
After going through this article you will have the basic knowledge about the installation of exchange server 2010 with co-existence of Exchange 2003, how to move mailboxes, public folder, OAB, creation of connector in Exchange server 2010 and finally we will decommission the exchange 2003 server from one organization.

This is purely a lab environment testing and this whole transition article is based on the scope of giving a base idea how to do a transition from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007.

Note: Before we proceed further please go through this article Transition from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007 (optional)

My Current Setup:
I have 2 domains: (1) Happy Domain (2) Smile Domain
In Happy Domain I have 2 computers
Computer-1: E2K3 (computer name) : this is DC\GC, DNS and plus it is having Exchange 2003 Server installed with mailboxes, DL & Public Folders.
 IP address: 40.40.40.1

Computer-2: Edge (computer name) : This computer is kept in the dmz network which is possessing two nic card, one for happy domain and another for smile domain.
 1st nic card : 40.40.40.2 & 2nd nic card : 192.168.0.1
Smile Domain:

 In Smile Domain I have only 1 computer

Ex2k3 (computer name) : this is DC\GC, DNS and plus it is having Exchange 2003 Server installed with mailboxes, DL & Public Folders for smile domain.

Both Happy and Smile Domain are able to send and receive e-mail as I have created a smtp connector. I won’t discuss much on the how to setup the mailflow between two exchange 2003 servers organization , if you would like to know  about the setup which I made for mailflow please refer this exchangeserverinfo.com link

How to Setup Mailflow between two different Forests in a Lab using VMWare

Created Users, DL, Security Group and Public folders in Exchange 2003 of happy.com

Overview of upgrade steps from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010

Installation of Exchange Server 2010

Installation of Exchange Server 2010 is same as like Exchange Server 2007. Whenever we are thinking of Exchange 2010\ Exchange 2007 installation there are two major places which we need to focus – first one is Active Directory Preparation and second one is Local Server Preparation.

Before the installation of Exchange Server 2010. It is very important to make a proper planning and inorder to do that use the following tools which will make your life easy:

1. Cost Savings Calculator
2. Deployment Assistant Tool
3. Planning for Active Directory
4. Planning for Mailbox Server Role

Active Directory Preparation for Exchange 2010:

• Schema Master: Schema Master should one of the following:
  • Windows Server 2003 Standard or Enterprise Edition with Service Pack 1 (SP1) or later. This can be either 32-bit or 64-bit.
  • Windows Server 2008 Standard or Enterprise Edition or later. This can be either 32-bit or 64-bit.
  • Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard or Edition
• Global Catalog Server : Schema Master should one of the following:
  • Windows Server 2003 Standard or Enterprise Edition with Service Pack 1 (SP1) or later. This can be either 32-bit or 64-bit. 
  • Windows Server 2008 Standard or Enterprise Edition or later. This can be either 32-bit or 64-bit. 
  • Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard or Edition.
• Domain Controller : 
  • Windows Server 2003 Standard or Enterprise Edition with Service Pack 1 (SP1) or later. This can be either 32-bit or 64-bit.
  • Windows Server 2008 Standard or Enterprise Edition or later. This can be either 32-bit or 64-bit. 
  • Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard or Edition
• Active Directory Forest : Active Directory Forest must be at least Windows Server 2003 functional level.

Co-existence of Exchange Server 2010 will be supported in one of the following:

• Exchange 2003 with Service Pack2 : Exchange 2003 should be in native mode only
• Exchange Server 2007 with Service Pack2 : Note - When you install Exchange 2007 Service Pack2 it will extend the schema for Exchange Server 2010 level as well. So whenever you are deploying exchange server 2010 at that time you don’t require to extend the schema once again.

Note : Current Scenario – We have Exchange 2003 with SP2

Exchange Server Preparation:

• Hardware :
  • Processor : Intel 64-bit Processor\ AMD64 Processor.
  • Page File Size : The page file size minimum and maximum must be set to physical RAM plus 10  MB
  • Memory : Depends upon the actual requirement minimum 2 GB plus 2\3.5\4 MB per mailbox and can be support upto 64 GB. 
  • Disk Space : 1.2 GB free for the drive where we are installing the Exchange, 500 MB more space if we are installing UM, 200 MB free on the system drive and 500 MB free space for Transport Server role
  • Drive : DVD-Rom or Network Access.
• Hardware Virtualization:
  Microsoft supports Exchange 2010 in production on hardware virtualization software only when all the following conditions are true:
  The hardware virtualization software is running:
  • Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V technology
  • Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V technology
  • Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008
  • Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2

Any third-party hypervisor that has been validated under the Windows Server Virtualization Validation Program.

• Mailbox server memory recommendations   : 

Software:

• Operating System: Windows Server 2008 Standard or Enterprise with SP2 or R2 Edition or just to install the console Vista with latest SP is supported. 
• Other Software Requirement: there many other software required and actually it depends upon which roles you are installing and based on that you can select the required one. Exchange2010 Pre-requisites

My requirement is very simple, clean installation of Exchange 2010 on windows server 2008 R2 where I will install all the Exchange Server roles except Edge Transport Server Role & Unified Server Role.

As I said earlier this exchange server is going to part of existing exchange organization, so inorder to welcome this new server I need to run the following commands:
 setup /PrepareLegacyExchangePermissions
 setup /PrepareSchema
 Setup /PrepareAD

1. Setup /PrepareLegacyExchangePermissions:
   This is the first command you will run when you are going to bring Exchange Server 2010 into the Exchange 2003 Organization. The reason why we need to run this command is to ensure that Recipient Update Service for Exchange 2003 should function properly.
   Note: This command needs to be run on the domain wherever you have ran /domainprep
2. Setup /PrepareSchema:
   This is the second command which needs to be run after preparelegacy. It will import the LDIF file to update the schema with Exchange 2010 attributes.
3. Setup /PrepareAD:
   PrepareAD is 3rd command line which needs to run. It will accomplish the following task before the actual installation of Exchange Server 2010 like:
    It will create Microsoft Exchange Security Group
    It will create Microsoft Exchange Container under Configuration Partition
    Assignment of proper permission for Microsoft Exchange Container under Configuration Partition.
   Note: Already I have made my domain as Windows 2003 Functional Level and exchange 2003 as native mode

.
Once you execute the entire above command, run exbpa tool and select Exchange Server 2010 readiness. Ensure that it is showing green signal for us. Another fact is if you have more than one routing group then suppress the link state information.
Note: Link State Suppression is not enabled by default. Before introducing Exchange Server 2010 into existing topology, the 'SuppressStateChanges' configuration parameter should be set to '1' on server e2k3.happy.com. This parameter is essential if you plan to create multiple connectors to the dedicated Exchange 2007 routing group.
Reason: In earlier versions of Exchange, when a target server was unreachable, the down connector state was propagated throughout the Exchange organization by link state updates, and an alternative route was calculated. In Exchange 2007, when a message can't be relayed directly to the target server because of network problems, no alternative route is calculated. The message queues on a Hub Transport server in the closest reachable site to the point of failure. The purpose of this procedure is to make sure that routing loops cannot occur.  So that’s why we need to set it to value 1 in the registry

Inorder to set the registry follow the below step:
1. Open Registry Editor.
2. Locate HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\RESvc\Parameters.
3. Right-click Parameters and select New | DWORD value. Name the new DWORD value SuppressStateChanges.
4. Double-click SuppressStateChanges.
5. In the Value data field, enter 1.
6. Close Registry Editor and then restart the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) service, the Microsoft Exchange Routing Engine service, and the Microsoft Exchange MTA Stacks services for the change to take effect.
Note: You have to do it on each exchange 2000\2003 server if you have more then one routing group connector
Now before we execute the above 3 commands we need to ensure that we have .Net Framework 3.5 & windows PowerShell 2.0 if you are installing Exchange Server 2010 on Windows Server Sp2. Since we are using Windows Server 2008 R2 this pre-requisite already met. All we need to do is install the .net framework 3.5 sp1 via feature
If you are using Windows Server 2008 with SP2 then you need to download the .net framework 3.5: click here

Setup.com /preparelegacyexchangepermssions:
Figure1:

 

Setup.com /PrepareSchema:
PrepareSchema needs to be run if you Exchange Server 2003 with SP2 or Exchange Server 2007 or Exchange Server 2007 with SP1. If you have Exchange Server 2007 with SP2 you don’t require to run prepareschema, because Exchange Server 2007 Sp2 has already extended the schema.
Figure 2:

 

Setup.com /prepareAD
Figure3:

 

Server Specification Requirements for All roles are:

 .NET Framework 3.5
 RSAT-ADDS" : These components are required for RBAC remoting on all server roles except Edge
 Web-Server : IIS
   Web-Basic-Auth
   Web-Windows-Auth
   Web-Metabase
   Web-Net-Ext
   Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console
   WAS-Process-Model
   RSAT-Clustering
   RSAT-Web-Server

Client Access server role prerequisites
   Web-ISAPI-Ext
   Web-Digest-Auth
   Web-Dyn-Compression
   NET-HTTP-Activation
   RPC-over-HTTP-proxy

Edge server role prerequisites
 ADLDS

Unified Messaging server role prerequisites
   Desktop-Experience
   ServerManagerConfiguration

When Ms released Exchange server 2007 it was little difficult for us to ensure that we met all the server-level prerequisites because we need to do the task one by one. Now in Exchange Server 2010 we don’t require to create our own script or batch file. In order to complete the prerequisite we need call one answerable xml file which is called as Exchange-All.xml, Exchange-typical.xml and each role prerequisite from the command prompt and the command which needs to executed is ServerManagerCmd -ip Exchange-typical.xml

Figure 4:

 

There is other few prerequisites need to considered before the installation:

1. Set Net.Tcp Port  Service Automatic
2. Install 2007 Office system converter.

 
Once we meet the above prerequisites, we are ready to install the Exchange Server 2010 without any issues.
The very first screen of the setup is introduction screen, click on NEXT

 


Then EULA, no other choice for us  , Select I Accept and click on NEXT

 

Then Error Reporting, if it is a production environment would recommend to select “YES” and if it is a lab environment it is optional:

 

Then after the error reporting, Installation Type:
Select as per your requirement, as it is my lab environment I selected Typical

 

Then configuring the client access server external domain:
This is the place where you will define the access of CAS from Exchange Activesync, Outlook anywhere and OWA from outside the domain

 

After this “Mail Flow Settings”:
Need to set the bridgehead server for the mailflow.

 

Customer Service Improvments Optional:

 


Then it will do a readiness check:

 

Note: In the above figure, we have being informed that if we are using Outlook 2003 we need to replicate free/busy folder to Exchange Server 2010 because Outlook 2003 free busy information will be provided by system folder i.e free/busy data which is there inside the Public folder database. For Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010, it doesn’t require relying on free/busy folder rather than this it will be updated by Users Mailbox.

Once you click on Install, it will install all the respective roles. Now let me show you the legacy exchange mailboxes

 

If you see the above figure there is a difference between the mailboxes which I marked, Discovery search mailbox is the one which is created in Exchange Server 2010 and rest of the mailboxes are still lying there in Exchange Server 2010

Or else if you want to know the status of the mailbox from the PowerShell you can run this following command: get-mailbox | fl alias recipienttypedetails

In next article I will guide on move mailbox, pf replication and system folders.

Related Articles:

• Transition from Exchange Server 2003 to Exchange Server 2010 - Part1
• Transition from Exchange Server 2003 to Exchange Server 2010 - Part2

Reference Article:

Getting Started With Exchange 2010