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Transition from Exchange 2003 to 2010

I am preparing to transition from an Exchange 2003 to a 2010 server. We only have 1 Exchange 2003 server and the new 2010 server is going to host all roles (except Edge) and run on a Win Server 2008 R2 server. I am updating our Domain Controller to be on a 2008 R2 server also. I've read some upgrade documents suggested on this site and reviewed the MS Deployment Assistant, but I have some questions.

1. My current Primary DNS suffix is xxx.local, but all the mail comes in addressed to mycompany.net. Does that mean I have a 'Disjointed Namespace'?

2. In the Deployment Assistant under 'Configure Disjointed Namespace', it references a document 'Domain Rename Procedure'. It's not telling me to rename the domain is it?

3. I was thinking about getting my certificate before starting the upgrade, but I was concerned that it would 'break' the old one and not allow OWA, ActiveSync, and Outlook Anywhere traffic thru. If I preorder the cert with the same domain name mail.mycompany.net, with other domains on it, will that break the old one? If it does break, could I install the new cert on the old Exchange server if the computer name is not on the new cert?

4. I'm planning on installing on a VMware 4.1 virtual machine. Are there any concerns doing this?

Any other advice?

Thanks,

Jian An Lim

1. Disjointed Namespace only happen when you upgrade from windows nt4. if you start with windows 2000, you wont have Disjointed Namespace.

2. same as above

3. if you are using mail.mycompany.net, if you pre-order the same one with the provider, then you will break your first one. or else you wont. Also make sure you have a SAN certificate (to include all possible name), or a wildcard certificate

4. I believe is vsphere 4.1. make sure you read the pre-requiresite for Hardware Virtualization under http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa996719.aspx

imccoy

ASKER

I'm still a little confused on how to handle the certificate. I want to use the same mail.mycompany.net so I won't have to change all of our remote users settings. So how should I proceed:

1. Get a new cert and run it on both servers? Is that possible?

2. Wait until I get Echange 2010 installed and try to get it done in one day? Will all of my ActiveSync & Outlook Anywhere users loose access until I can migrate all of the mailboxes?

Thanks.

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Jian An Lim

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imccoy

ASKER

Thanks for the help