Installing second Exchange 2010 Server into same domain for physical to virtual migration.

Am I correct in believing that email flow to the old production server should not be affected with the install of the second Exchange Server?

Correct.

Incoming email will flow into the existing server, and route to the mailboxes, on either server.

Eventually, when you move the mailboxes from Server A to Server B, clients will find their new mailboxes automatically on the new Server B.

Andrew, What about the identical internet facing Client Access Server FQDN?  I want to maintain the same FQDN for our MX record and Firewall settings not to mention all the mobile phones with active sync already configured.

Is this procedure and project to MIGRATE MAILBOXES from physical to virtual.

If so, leave everything the same, Migrate Mailboxes, and then later decommission the old physical server,  where you will then need to add a SMTP connector to the New Server, and the change the MX record, to point to this new server IP Address,

OR you could use the old IP Address on this server as well for the SMTP connector, so no change required of MX record.

You cannot have two FQDN the same!

So if I have mail.mycompanydomain.com as Client Access FQDN for Exchange Server 1 (old Server) I cannot have the same Client Access FQDN (mail.mycompanydomain.com) name for Exchange Server 2 (new server)?

The new exchange server will have a different private ip address on the Lan.  Our mail flows to Proofpoint and then gets relayed to a public ip on Sonicwall NSA 3500 interface.  There is a firewall rule to route traffic on smtp port 25 to the internal Exchange Server 1.  All I have to do on the firewall is change the internal ip to the new Exchange Server to cut over mail flow to the new server.

I want to keep the same Client Access FQDN or else I will have to reprogram all the mobile phones that sync with the old client access FQDN as well as update OWA users with the new URL.

I will monitor this question through today as I want to get replies from a variety of people.

Thanks,
Rich

I mean CAS Arrays do exactly that do they not?

"In short, a CAS Array is a load balanced group of CAS computers accessed through a single FQDN."

Just as an Fyi here is our mail flow:

MX Record >>> Proofpoint >>> Sonicwall NSA 3500 Public Interface >>>
Firewall rule forwards smtp traffic to Exchange server on the lan.

CAS Arrays are for load balancing and doing Active Directory Site Boundary's as well. You have 1 CAS Array per Active Directory Site that is hosting Exchange. CAS Array does not Load Balance by itself. You still need to have a load balancer in place to have this working.

It is also recommend that even if you do not plan to load balance your CAS servers that you still create a CAS Array and add the single CAS server to it.

Because you are not having load balancing in place when you have 2 CAS servers in the same AD site leave the virtual directories on the new Exchange server as the internal computer name URL and have your old server proxy the connections to it.

Once you have moved all of the mailboxes over to the new environment, change all of your virtual directory URL's to mail.domain.com/....., change the firewall settings to point to the new Exchange server.

Test to ensure that everything is flowing properly and all services are functioning then you can decommission the server.

Will.

Can the selection of the CAS FQDN remain the same Will?

mail.ourcompanydomain.com

or do I have to create different different fqdn?

mail2.ourcompanydomain.com

as I read your response it seems it should be the internal url:

msx-v.ourcompanydomain.com

msx-v is current hostname of new vm/Exchange Server.

No i can remain the same. Do not change this on the new server until you are ready to cut over the CAS role. I say this because you are not load balancing your CAS servers. So all internet coming in is going to hit your old CAS server and proxy the connections to the New Exchange Mailbox server.

Then when you are ready make the flip and update the URL's on your new Exchange server and firewall.

Will.

Sorry " No i ___ can or cannot remain the same.

our current one is mail. domain.com and I want to keep it the same on the new server.  Sorry not trying to be difficult appreciate your time.

Is this a migration, to get rid of the physical server.... okay I'm going to chuck in a hand grenade here....

how about keep everything the same, and do a P2V (physical to virtual conversion!)

no need for 2nd server, and no change required, no mailbox migrations.

Everything Remains the Same!

Andrew is correct. If this is simply a move then just do a P2V.

Will.

He He I've heard nothing but negativity about p2ving Exchange.  Appreciate the suggestion but not going that route.

I'm sorry, you've been poorly advised, with inexperienced users, that do not know what they are doing!

See and Read my FAQ, and you may understand the P2V process a little better!

I have done many P2Vs in the wild, and helped many Experts Exchange users to complete their Exchange P2Vs with great success, here on EE!

Some of my EE Articles

HOW TO: FAQ VMware P2V Troubleshooting

HOW TO:  P2V, V2V for FREE - VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.5.3 - Shellshock "BASH" Fix included in this version

HOW TO:  Synchronize changes when completing a P2V or V2V with VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.1

I'll review it this weekend Andrew thanks.  But I have seen a lot of recommendations against it at Microsoft, Petri, VMware communities and a dozen other sources because that was the route I was originally going to go.

Thanks as well Will.