moving mailboxes from Exchange 2003 to SBS2003

I am trying to consolidate our servers in two locations to one.  One remote has Win2003 with 10 mailboxes on Exchange2003.  I want to re-use the server for file serving since it 8 months old, has RAID, Gigabit, etc, but don't want to remote admin the exchange.  My main office is running SBS2003 with 8 mailboxes.  My though is to move the 10 Exchange2003 mailboxes to the SBS2003 server at the main office and have those user connect over our VPN using Outlook 2003 and the HTTP connection features.  With just a few users and groups, its probably easiest to export the mailboxes to pst files then import onto the SBS box, right?  Also, the domain names and email domains are different, but I understand SBS can handle email for multiple domains, lets call them mainoffice.com and remoteoffice.com.   The users at remoteoffice.com do get some 10Mb attachments, but I can enforce an attachement limit.

Does anyone see a flaw in my lodgic?  Or a better way?
Will the remote users scream about outlook running slow with the server at the main office, they have had their own server for 5 years?
Will the remote users loss any features going from Exch2003 to SBS2003?

Thank you

Bill
LVL 1
Bill_MillikinAsked:
Who is Participating?

Improve company productivity with a Business Account.Sign Up

x
Advertise Here
 
Jeffrey Kane - TechSoEasyConnect With a Mentor Principal ConsultantCommented:
Just create two separate security groups... and give access to whatever resources there are for each.  You can't really hide the folders in Exchange, but you can place each groups folders within another folder and then deny access to that folder to the other groups... essentially hiding everything within the top level folder.

Licensing is per authenticated user... or per authenticated device, depending on how you buy your CALs... generally USER CALs are preferable.  Mailboxes don't matter at all... you can have up to, I think, 750 of them... which should be plenty.  You can actually have additional users as well... as long as they don't log in... meaning that some times you need a user account that is created for a particular program.  TrendMicro Client/Server/Messaging suite, for instance, creates three user accounts... and those won't take up a CAL.

Jeff
TechSoEasy
0
 
Jeffrey Kane - TechSoEasyPrincipal ConsultantCommented:
Well, I'll start with your last question first.

SBS2003 has Exchange 2003 as part of it's components.  So there are no feature losses... because it's exactly the same thing.  Actually, I would wonder if you've got Outlook Web Access enabled on your standard Win2003 machine... so perhaps they have even more with SBS.

Will the remote users scream?  Tha all depends on your Internet connections on both ends, mostly.  There's no reason for the remote users to use VPN though... they can just use RPC over HTTPS.  The exact instructions for that are on your SBS box (including your specific FQDN entries) by going to https://localhost/Remote.  Log in and then click the "Configure Outlook via the Internet" link.

For info on how to configure multiple domains in Exchange 2003 on SBS:
http://seanda.blogspot.com/2004/10/hosting-multiple-domains-on-sbs-2003.html

Then, finally, yes... you want to export the mailboxes with EXMerge.  

Jeff
TechSoEasy
0
 
Bill_MillikinAuthor Commented:
Good answers and links, More questions.  The remote has their own public folders and contacts.  Any suggestion on how to move these folders and contact to the SBS server and can these folders be seperate for the main office folders and contacts?  I would prefer they not be able to see or intermingle.

Also, how does the licensing work on the SBS, per mailbox or authenticated user?

Bill
0
 
Bill_MillikinAuthor Commented:
Thank you for the advice...

Bill
0
Question has a verified solution.

Are you are experiencing a similar issue? Get a personalized answer when you ask a related question.

Have a better answer? Share it in a comment.

All Courses

From novice to tech pro — start learning today.