Understanding Exchagne 2010

I will answer some of your questions

1. There are different roles, CAS, Hub, mailbox, and UM that you can break out into different server if you would like to. For smaller environments generally it is all in one. If you want redundancy you could do that as well. For example here is how you could do hardware load balanced multiple CAS scenario http://www.msexchange.org/articles_tutorials/exchange-server-2010/high-availability-recovery/load-balancing-exchange-2010-client-access-servers-using-hardware-load-balancer-solution-part1.html

3. You can schedule and move mailboxes from the GUI of Exchange 2010, I would suggest doing it that way over the PowerShell

4. When you say CAG and refer to certificates are you talking about a SAN SSL certificate?

5. http://www.exchange-genie.com/2009/04/database-availability-group-dag-exchange-2010/

Thanks for the responce here are my responces..

3- I thought schedule mailbox moved via the GUI was removed in 2010???? I konw you have to restore mailbox via powershell unless I'm missing something

4- Yes I am referring to the SSL certificates

1- I guess I'm referrging to the CAS & HUB servers I already have a big beefy mailbox server for 2010 on stand-by?

*** Does 2010 have some way to sync it DB's with a remove server for D/R purposes?

3. It looks like you can still do it in the GUI of 2010 but it is different than 2007. http://www.msexchange.org/articles_tutorials/exchange-server-2010/management-administration/moving-mailboxes-exchange-2010-part1.html

4. The SAN certs let you secure multiple domains in a single certificate. For example you will do the server's netbios name, fqdn, autodiscover.domain.com, and public OWA address, say webmail.domain.com. I have always used DigiCert to order from but there are cheaper places to get them from.

http://www.digicert.com/ssl-certificate-installation-microsoft-exchange-2010.htm

http://exchangeserverpro.com/exchange-2010-ssl-certificates

1. I'm not sure of the best practice for breaking out the CAS and hub as I have always put everything on the same box.

You are able to do site replication for DR purposes, to be honest I have not migrated to Exchange 2010 yet so I am not totally sure on which technology would be used. I would read though the previous link I added for the DAG. You also should consider which licensing you will need, site replication may require an enterprise license rather than standard.

WOW!!!!

This is very confusing... Exchagne 2010 is so different from 2003 :-(

Ya there were a lot of changes from 2003, also keep in mind that you will need to run on an x64 Windows system. If you are in no rush you could download an eval and play with it for a while with some other domain to get comfortable with it.

Have you migrated from 2003 to 2010..

If so any suggestions from your experience?

I have not, I have gone from 2003 to 2007, and 2007 to 2007 multiple times but have yet to actually use 2010. I would assume the experience would be fairly similar.

I would suggest creating an Excel task list so that you have everything mapped out in the order that you are going to do it so you don't forget anything. Start by getting the OS ready to go, patched, AV (set exclusions). etc.

After that start by doing everything that won't interfere with production. Make sure you meet all the pre-reqs for coexistence. Take your time and do lots of testing. Snapshots in a virtual environment would be helpful just don't keep them too long. Make sure you remember DNS internally and externally.

Below are some links to guides for going from 2003 to 2010

http://www.simple-talk.com/sysadmin/exchange/upgrade-exchange-2003-to-exchange-2010/
http://msexchangegeek.com/2010/01/30/rapid-transition-guide-from-exchange-2003-to-exchange-2010/

I have two AD sites I would I to setup a CAS array in my main site and a DAG and another CAS array in my remote site..

Can this be done?

I believe so but to be honest that level of complexity is beyond me and would require some research/testing.

I've been search online can not find any docutions as to how to setup

Two CAS Array in my two AD sites. This is for DR purpose I need to be able to have alll users automically fail over to another array if there local site array is not availbe

The URLs I provided should get you going in that direction, I think DAG is what you will want to use. The MX records will provide the priority levels so if your primary site fails it will go to the DR site. The harder thing to do would be taking care of A records for OWA.

To be honest, this level of complexity if beyond me without doing much researching and testing on my own to advise you.

In not worried about OWA access for my DR site though

Thanks but I'm really looking for like a step by step guide on cas array for mulitple sites and failover