Manish Chaudhary
asked on
proper way to decommission Exchange 2013 after migrating to Exchange 2016 on-premise
I've just done an upgrade from Exchange2013 CU19 to Exchange2016 CU10. At the moment, the two co-exist and mail flow/public folders, most stuff I can see is working as expected, without issues. Since I've migrated everything(mailboxes, PF, Arbitration MB etc) I want to get to the state where I can decommision the old Exchange2013. I checked message headers and everything is Sending/Receiving from Exchange 2016, 2013 Exchange isnt acting as a Proxy. Today I took first step towards the decommission, I turned off Exchange services on Exchange 2013 box followed by disabling the receive/send connectors for this Exchange 2013 box. Disabling services didnt do it but a little after disabling the send/receive connectors the Exchange 2013 box blue screened.
I've couple of questions - :
-Whats the proper way to decommission the Exchange 2013. Most guides tell me to simply uninstall Exchange 2013 from Add/remove programs and I'm wary of doing that just yet, especially if I've no way of knowing if the mail stuff is now completely coming from Exchange 2013. OfflineAddressbook is still pointing to Exchange 2013 (Default Offline Address List (Ex2013))
- I still see the Exchange 2013 edb is big, isnt the move suppose to migrate all the mailboxes and clean out that Exchange 2013 edb?
- I see some errors for the Public folder, how can I check if its a legacy PF mailbox or modern. Before 2013 we had Exchange 2010 where the PF came from.
-Following errors also dont make sense - Exchange ActiveSync tried to access a mailbox on Mailbox server "OSExchange2016.Openstore.
-The periodic heartbeat to primary server osexchange2013.openstore.c
-The description for Event ID 1013 from source MSExchangeFastSearch cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer.(1013)
-Watson report about to be sent for process id: 8276, with parameters: E12IIS, c-RTL-AMD64, 15.01.1466.003, w3wp#MSExchangeOWAAppPool,
ErrorReportingEnabled: True (4999 General)
-No route has been created for public folder hierarchy CN=Public Folders,CN=Folder Hierarchies,CN=First Administrative Group,CN=Administrative Groups,CN=Open Solutions,CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Co
-Migrating Offline Address book, how do we do that, I looked at the simple way using cmd in powershell but it gave me this error -
[PS] C:\Windows\system32>Move-O
016"
You can't use the move-offlineaddressbook cmdlet to move the OAB generation server. To move the Offline Address Book,
please move the OAB generation mailbox.
+ CategoryInfo : InvalidOperation: (\Default Offline Address List (Ex2013):ADObjectId) [Move-OfflineAddre
ssBook], InvalidOperationException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : [Server=OSEXCHANGE2013,Req
18 9:11:14 PM] [FailureCategory=Cmdlet-In
figurationTasks.MoveOfflin
+ PSComputerName : osexchange2013.openstore.c
I wish there was a good guide for retirement of old Exchange 2013 server to make the transition smoother. As I'm turning things off on Exchange2013, other things are breaking in the environment, even though mail-flow works fine.
Please advise, thanks!
I've couple of questions - :
-Whats the proper way to decommission the Exchange 2013. Most guides tell me to simply uninstall Exchange 2013 from Add/remove programs and I'm wary of doing that just yet, especially if I've no way of knowing if the mail stuff is now completely coming from Exchange 2013. OfflineAddressbook is still pointing to Exchange 2013 (Default Offline Address List (Ex2013))
- I still see the Exchange 2013 edb is big, isnt the move suppose to migrate all the mailboxes and clean out that Exchange 2013 edb?
- I see some errors for the Public folder, how can I check if its a legacy PF mailbox or modern. Before 2013 we had Exchange 2010 where the PF came from.
-Following errors also dont make sense - Exchange ActiveSync tried to access a mailbox on Mailbox server "OSExchange2016.Openstore.
-The periodic heartbeat to primary server osexchange2013.openstore.c
-The description for Event ID 1013 from source MSExchangeFastSearch cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer.(1013)
-Watson report about to be sent for process id: 8276, with parameters: E12IIS, c-RTL-AMD64, 15.01.1466.003, w3wp#MSExchangeOWAAppPool,
ErrorReportingEnabled: True (4999 General)
-No route has been created for public folder hierarchy CN=Public Folders,CN=Folder Hierarchies,CN=First Administrative Group,CN=Administrative Groups,CN=Open Solutions,CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Co
-Migrating Offline Address book, how do we do that, I looked at the simple way using cmd in powershell but it gave me this error -
[PS] C:\Windows\system32>Move-O
016"
You can't use the move-offlineaddressbook cmdlet to move the OAB generation server. To move the Offline Address Book,
please move the OAB generation mailbox.
+ CategoryInfo : InvalidOperation: (\Default Offline Address List (Ex2013):ADObjectId) [Move-OfflineAddre
ssBook], InvalidOperationException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : [Server=OSEXCHANGE2013,Req
18 9:11:14 PM] [FailureCategory=Cmdlet-In
figurationTasks.MoveOfflin
+ PSComputerName : osexchange2013.openstore.c
I wish there was a good guide for retirement of old Exchange 2013 server to make the transition smoother. As I'm turning things off on Exchange2013, other things are breaking in the environment, even though mail-flow works fine.
Please advise, thanks!
ASKER
I've stopped IIS and exchange service on 2013 box, which is also running file server role so it cannot be decommissioned yet. After stopping services I noticed the errors I mentioned in my originating post.
How would I go about migrating the offline address book, checking if I'm running of legacy or modern etc
How would I go about migrating the offline address book, checking if I'm running of legacy or modern etc
You do not need to move the Offline Address book in 2013 it uses generation mailbox.
There is no need to since you have both the version 2013 and 2016 using generation mailbox.
Since the old 2013 server is also a file server, then you need to decide since you cannot decomission the file server and will have to move it to 2016 or find an alternate way before you decomission exchange 2013.
As far as public folders is concerned, if you have migrated all mailboxes then you need to also migrate public folders from 2013 to 2016.
Reference Article: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/collaboration/public-folders/migrate-from-exchange-2013?view=exchserver-2019
There is no need to since you have both the version 2013 and 2016 using generation mailbox.
Since the old 2013 server is also a file server, then you need to decide since you cannot decomission the file server and will have to move it to 2016 or find an alternate way before you decomission exchange 2013.
As far as public folders is concerned, if you have migrated all mailboxes then you need to also migrate public folders from 2013 to 2016.
Reference Article: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/collaboration/public-folders/migrate-from-exchange-2013?view=exchserver-2019
ASKER
I've already migrated public folders to 2016. I'm still seeing some warning messages in event log even though migration and access of public folders is successful. I posted the kind of error in my original post.
Thanks for bringing up this Saif. However why is there a need to move the file server role to a different server. Can't we simply remove exchange 2013 and leave it acting as file server for 6 months or so?
Thanks for answering oab question.
Thanks for bringing up this Saif. However why is there a need to move the file server role to a different server. Can't we simply remove exchange 2013 and leave it acting as file server for 6 months or so?
Thanks for answering oab question.
Read this article to decommission exchange server 2013. It will give you a brief overview of the reliable method.
ASKER
Thanks, let me look into it and get back to you!
This question needs an answer!
Become an EE member today
7 DAY FREE TRIALMembers can start a 7-Day Free trial then enjoy unlimited access to the platform.
View membership options
or
Learn why we charge membership fees
We get it - no one likes a content blocker. Take one extra minute and find out why we block content.
The reason the DB sizes are still large is because that space is never reclaimed as free space even though you moved everything to the 2016 DBs, but it becomes whitespace. dont worry about that though since you are decomming that server. That is really all you have to do.
The uninstall process removes the 2013 systems from your environment cleanly.