how and what to upgrade my current Exchange 2010 environment to the best possible environment available as of today?
Hey Experts,
I’m a huge fan of your site and have been using you guys for years now and I absolutely love your Experts. Thanks for all the help throughout the years.
I have a dilemma that I hope you all can help me with... I consider myself quite good with Exchange (all versions since 2000) … but I still can’t create my “best environment” I could probably manage because of all the Pros and Cons… so little advice will be very helpful.
Here is my current environment:
- Single Hyper-V VM machine with 20 CPU’s and 32Gb RAM, replicating that VM every 15min as well as doing Altaro full backups every day.
- Single Exchange 2010 with 7 database stores each store on different drive with 400Gb space for each drive (at least 100Gb free on each drive)
- I’m running multi-tenant environment for about 15 small customers totaling to about 700 mailboxes
I’m in a process of upgrading the above environment and that’s where I need a little bit of an advice. I’m planning to upgrade above environment as follows:
- New Hyper-V machine, quite powerful again (like above, even better as far as resources) with replication running every 15 min and Altaro full backups at night
- I’m planning to have Windows Server 2019 Standard operating system on it, install Exchange 2016 in co-existence with above Exchange 2010 environment and then move over my existing 2010 Exchange environment to the new environment. Then remove/demolish the Exchange 2010 and upgrade to Exchange 2019 (in-pace upgrade since it is available once I’m at Ex 2016)
Am I good so far? Any advises on my plan so far?
Here are the questions I have and I hope somebody can help me make my plan:
- Should I use DAG? If yes, why? If no, why not? … I’ve read all the Pros and Cons about DAG but I still can’t draw a line for myself where I should use it and where not.
- If yes on the DAG, should I implement it before the transition or after?
- Should I use second or third Exchange server for above size company/databases (if not DAG case)? Again, I can’t make the decision if I consider my environment (700 users with less than 2TB data) quite large for having more than one Exchange.
I never had any issues with running single Exchange 2010 server with above set up… all works great but I’m couple version behind so I need to upgrade for sure… Plus reliability is also a must for me.
Please help me out with some advises… will be really helpful to hear some extra opinions on the matter.
Thanks in advanced
I’m a huge fan of your site and have been using you guys for years now and I absolutely love your Experts. Thanks for all the help throughout the years.
I have a dilemma that I hope you all can help me with... I consider myself quite good with Exchange (all versions since 2000) … but I still can’t create my “best environment” I could probably manage because of all the Pros and Cons… so little advice will be very helpful.
Here is my current environment:
- Single Hyper-V VM machine with 20 CPU’s and 32Gb RAM, replicating that VM every 15min as well as doing Altaro full backups every day.
- Single Exchange 2010 with 7 database stores each store on different drive with 400Gb space for each drive (at least 100Gb free on each drive)
- I’m running multi-tenant environment for about 15 small customers totaling to about 700 mailboxes
I’m in a process of upgrading the above environment and that’s where I need a little bit of an advice. I’m planning to upgrade above environment as follows:
- New Hyper-V machine, quite powerful again (like above, even better as far as resources) with replication running every 15 min and Altaro full backups at night
- I’m planning to have Windows Server 2019 Standard operating system on it, install Exchange 2016 in co-existence with above Exchange 2010 environment and then move over my existing 2010 Exchange environment to the new environment. Then remove/demolish the Exchange 2010 and upgrade to Exchange 2019 (in-pace upgrade since it is available once I’m at Ex 2016)
Am I good so far? Any advises on my plan so far?
Here are the questions I have and I hope somebody can help me make my plan:
- Should I use DAG? If yes, why? If no, why not? … I’ve read all the Pros and Cons about DAG but I still can’t draw a line for myself where I should use it and where not.
- If yes on the DAG, should I implement it before the transition or after?
- Should I use second or third Exchange server for above size company/databases (if not DAG case)? Again, I can’t make the decision if I consider my environment (700 users with less than 2TB data) quite large for having more than one Exchange.
I never had any issues with running single Exchange 2010 server with above set up… all works great but I’m couple version behind so I need to upgrade for sure… Plus reliability is also a must for me.
Please help me out with some advises… will be really helpful to hear some extra opinions on the matter.
Thanks in advanced
You might think of going to Exchange 2019 on a Server Core 2019 as the best end result ... Fewer resources for GUI and less surface area for security.
That might mean first going to an Eval of Ex 2013 or 2016 on a temporary eval server OS VM unless you want to use a third-party migration tool like https://www.codetwo.com/exchange-migration/
Multiple Ex servers won't be a big help if on the same host... likewise a DAG - Unless you have a separate physical machine for the replica. If the physical server goes down a DAG replica on the same host is pointless.
That might mean first going to an Eval of Ex 2013 or 2016 on a temporary eval server OS VM unless you want to use a third-party migration tool like https://www.codetwo.com/exchange-migration/
Multiple Ex servers won't be a big help if on the same host... likewise a DAG - Unless you have a separate physical machine for the replica. If the physical server goes down a DAG replica on the same host is pointless.
ASKER
Thanks for the suggestions.
Philip Elder, each of my tenants accounts/users has it's own unique custom attribute and I have Address Lists, Policies, GAL's, etc in place that address each tenant individually and denied security that prevents them from seeing each other on GAL.
I'm not worried much for the actual upgrade to Exchange 2016/2019 but I'm rather worried how to set up my environment at the end - can't find the answers of "how big my environment is?", "is it big enough for DAG?", "is it even better and more reliable having DAG", etc... or just upgrade to Exchange 2019 and leave it as it is - single Exchange 2019 server (quite powerful from resources point of view) with 8-10 database stores running on separate drives with no more than 400Gb each... i guess i'm scared in case of an issue, what will be best way to recover the entire environment in like minutes...
Philip Elder, each of my tenants accounts/users has it's own unique custom attribute and I have Address Lists, Policies, GAL's, etc in place that address each tenant individually and denied security that prevents them from seeing each other on GAL.
I'm not worried much for the actual upgrade to Exchange 2016/2019 but I'm rather worried how to set up my environment at the end - can't find the answers of "how big my environment is?", "is it big enough for DAG?", "is it even better and more reliable having DAG", etc... or just upgrade to Exchange 2019 and leave it as it is - single Exchange 2019 server (quite powerful from resources point of view) with 8-10 database stores running on separate drives with no more than 400Gb each... i guess i'm scared in case of an issue, what will be best way to recover the entire environment in like minutes...
DAG is a continuity feature. Meaning, things stay online if something breaks somewhere. Much like the Azure Stack HCI hyper-converged hardware cluster eliminates single points of failure to keep things online.
Since this is a hosting environment, it's a good idea to look at all single points of failure to address which ones to eliminate to facilitate Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to the tenants.
Resource wise, going from Exchange 2010 to Exchange 2019 as the final resting place for the mailboxes would mean a rough 35% to 45% increase in resources depending on how much demand the clients place on Exchange.
Exchange 2019 likes RAM. Lots of it. Exchange 2010 was a lot more disk dependent. Lots of I/O. The more vRAM you can throw at Exchange the happier your end users will be.
I just wrote this the other day: Server Core Based Exchange 2019 CU4 Install Error: The organization name, First,Organization, can’t be used because it contains invalid characters. Plus Install Tips
Since this is a hosting environment, it's a good idea to look at all single points of failure to address which ones to eliminate to facilitate Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to the tenants.
Resource wise, going from Exchange 2010 to Exchange 2019 as the final resting place for the mailboxes would mean a rough 35% to 45% increase in resources depending on how much demand the clients place on Exchange.
Exchange 2019 likes RAM. Lots of it. Exchange 2010 was a lot more disk dependent. Lots of I/O. The more vRAM you can throw at Exchange the happier your end users will be.
I just wrote this the other day: Server Core Based Exchange 2019 CU4 Install Error: The organization name, First,Organization, can’t be used because it contains invalid characters. Plus Install Tips
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Replica leaves 15 minutes on the table. That's a lot and places one in a bad liability situation.
At Exchange 2010 you can do a two-step migration using Exchange 2013 as the intermediary to get to Exchange 2019. If that is where you want to go.
Otherwise, Exchange 2016 is the version you would be able to migrate to.
Depending on how 2010 is set up, it may be a simple process. But, how are "tenants" carved up to create AD, address book, and mailbox exclusivity? That's going to be the key.