company merger, sbs 2003 and sbs 2011

foster5000
foster5000 used Ask the Experts™
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Hello, I have a client that has purchased a business. End result I have 2 SBS servers. I need to merge the SBS 2003 into the SBS 2011.  I would like to minimize down time. What is the process.... sbs 2003 (10 users); sbs 2011 (4 users) I know it is kind of backwards. But it seems to make sense to move to the sbs 2011.
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Technology and Business Process Advisor
Most Valuable Expert 2013
Commented:
The problem is you cannot create trusts between any domain and an SBS domain.  The simplest thing is probably to export the users' mailboxes in the 2003 server (use ExMerge) and create new accounts on the 2011 system and import the mailboxes.  (If the 2003 Mailboxes are over 2 GB then Exmerge won't work - then your best bet is probably a tool to convert the OST to a PST or a manual copy of the mail to a PST and then import that PST into 2011.

Keep in mind, this is not a trivial task.  If you don't have significant installation/management knowledge/experience/understanding of SBS and the processes I'm mentioning, then you probably need to hire a pro or risk taking both companies down if something goes wrong that you don't have the experience to deal with.
bbaoIT Consultant

Commented:
do the two ADs need to keep their existing name, users, application and resources, and the two groups of users will be working together under a bigger umbrella? or only the SBS 2011 environment is to be kept and everything from the 2003 AD will be removed and transferred into the 2011 AD?
David Johnson, CD
Top Expert 2016

Commented:
Everything has to be transferred to the SBS 2011 machine.. as mentioned before SBS does not support trusts .. if you want the tools the big boys use then you have to pay the big boys price.

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