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Ivan_WindonFlag for United States of America

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iPhones and Exchange 2003

At my job I'm in the process of migrating our Exchange 2003 server from one HP server to another.  I did some testing with my email account and found that the iPhone integration stops working when I move my mailbox from exchange01 to exchange02.  The way things are setup the MX and A records point to the public IP address which is assigned to our Barracuda spam box, and from there it forwards it to Exchange01.  Exchange01 will then check and see which server the mail is on and work accordingly.  So mail works fine, Blackberry phones work fine.  However iPhones don't work at all.  The mail server that the iPhones point to originally is mail.alsformalwear.com, however the new mail server is called exchange02.alsformalwear.com.  The migration is going to take a few days with all the replication and getting everything moved over.  Once it is done I will be uninstalling exchange01 and then renaming exchange02 to exchange01 and changing the private IPs to the IPs that were on Exchange01, so after all that it should be the same and hopefully the iPHones will start working again.  I'm trying to find a way however to keep them working during the migration as most of our iPhone users are VPs and would like to have continued access.  Is there something I should do to get the iPhones to work on both servers at once?
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Do you have just one exchange 2003 server? Or you have a Back End - Front End configuration

It is not a good idea after having Exchange02 ready, to rename it to Exchange01 and use the same IP. There are many associations with the Exchange Server name and you can not just make it like this

If the objective is just to migrate the hardware. You can instal the same Windows version in another hardware using another name to avoid conflict and schedule an offline operation where you take away the original server, and them begin the process of restoring the new one from the data in AD making the process of recover

Another option is prepare the Exchange02 server as a totally a new exchange server into the organization and configure your pointers to use the new server. For example, you shall have a firewall or reverse proxy application that point to the exchange web address of your Exchange01 server, and you shall change this value to the one in Exchange02. It works having both servers at the same time, but confiuring the corresponding parameters during the process of the migration
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Okay, well it's been quite a while since I did a server migration with Exchange, and it was for a smaller company.  I think last time I just moved the mailboxes to a new server and then removed the old server and then reconfigured the outlook clients to point to the new server.  It will be harder at this company as there are many hundreds of accounts I would have to change as from what I have learned only 2007 and higher outlook clients will auto locate a new exchange server.  Which is why I was trying to keep the new server with the same server name and IP.  

I haven't actually began the migration yet, so there is time for me to change my migration plan.  Is there a document on the web that goes over what you suggested withe the restoring from the data in AD.  What is actually involved in doing this.  I currently have the new server setup with Windows 2003 Standard Server and Exchange 2003.  Exchange01 and Exchange02 both now show up in the management tool.  Neither is set as a front end, they are both just Exchange Servers.  All the mailboxes are still on Exchange01 (except for mine which I was using to test things out and see if everything still worked the way I expected it to).  

The second option is easy enough, however is there a easier way to reconfigure a few hundred outlook clients to point to exchange02 instead of exchange01?  If I can do that then I'll just go that route as I think that would be the easiest method myself.  Changing the mail.alsformalwear.com pointer to the new IP is easy as well, it's just the client configuration that has me worried with that step.
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Ogandos
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Yes, I think I am going to go with the A route and just finish the migration to the new server and then leave it as Exchange02.  We will then just change the clients to point to the new exchange02 server and then remove exchange01 from the network.  

I still have the issues that I started this entire message out with however.  It's good that I found out these other issues as well, however I'm trying to figure out why the iPhones don't work once the email is moved over to Exchange02, they work while they are on Exchange02 just fine.  Any ideas on that one?

Let's see...

Do you mean? ...

1. Your users use iPhones on Exchange01, and when they are moved to Exhcange02 the iphone continues working, but after take way Exchange01 iphones don't work anymore,

or

2. Your users use iPhones on Exchange01, and when they are moved to Exchange02 the iphones stop working

Please, confirm me which one is the exact case and let me know how you handle the Exchange Publication for ActiveSync from the Internet

I wasn't the one who configured it so it would work.  So I'm not 100% sure how we handle the Exchange publication from ActiveSync.  The latter is the case with us.  The phones worked on Exchange01, and when we moved to Exchange02 they stopped working.

My server migration is nearly complete on this end.  The DNS and MX records all point to the new exchange02 server, and all mailboxes have been moved.  Replication should be finished up soon with the public folders, then there is just one step left before I remove exchange01 from the network.  So I hope to have it all done by Tuesday or Wednesday.
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Thanks for pointing out the issue with my migration.  Probably saved me a lot of headache there.  It wasn't the primary reason for the question, however it turned out to be the most important part.