Ladies and Gentlemen (and some ex-colleagues!)
I have a common Parent/Child AD Domain scenario where the parent domain is a forest root placeholder. Root Domain is AD.LOCAL (NetBios Name: ROOT), Child Domain is ABC.AD.LOCAL (NetBios Name: ABC). I wish to consolidate this down to a single domain forest (IE remove the parent domain), and rename the remaining domain to eventually end up with AD.ABCDEF.CO.UK. I'm comfortable that I can do this part with ADMTv3, and as a seasoned AD nerd, I can deal with anything nasty that happens to the AD database.
However, the current flaw in the plan is that the existing child domain (ABC.AD.LOCAL) has an Exchange 2003 cluster in it. I don't know how Exchange 2003 is likely to react to a domain restructure/rename and i'm not yet good enough on E2k3 to be able to fix a broken database.
So, I appear to have these choices:
1. IntRAforest Migration with ADMTv3 where I migrate all the resources to the parent Domain (AD.LOCAL) and then rename it to AD.ABCDEF.CO.UK while simply pruning off the now defunct child domain.
2. IntERforest Migration with ADMTv3 where I build a new parallel AD and Exchange infrastructure and simply drag the resources across in the usual way.
I therefore need a recommendation on what is possible, what is preferred and on any other scenarios you think might be more suitable.
To help you scale your advice: I have around 800 users total, of which 200 are live on the AD Domain (the rest on Novell) and 30 of those have mailboxes with data in them. The client is extremely risk averse.
You're advice and recommendations are greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Cheers
JamesDS
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Thanks for the replies chaps.
I've spoken to the client who very much likes the migrate option, but wants to go to E2007 in that case.
Before I distribute points, are you able to recommend a resource for information on migrating to Exchange 2007. I see little point in building a new infrastructure on a product that has already been superceded.
Thanks again
Cheers
JamesDS
There is very little on the Exchange 2007 migration yet - the product is less than two months old. If you are going to a new domain then you are looking at effectively a new build of Exchange and will just need to import the data.
Microsoft do have some new deployment guides which I have links to on my blog here: http://www.sembee.co.uk/ar
Simon.
Business Accounts
Answer for Membership
by: ErikKvKPosted on 2007-02-07 at 01:00:48ID: 18483422
In short.
Scenario 1 is low risk, low effort and low cost. Renaming the domain should not affect Exchange, but is (in my humble opinion) not proven.
Scenario 2 is low risk, high effort and medium to high cost. But migrating between domains is e proven and tested method.
Only question which remains is: Do you really need to rename the domain?