I see there are a couple of discussions concerning Exchange migrations from
one AD Forest to another, but I canâ??t find any that specifically discuss
moving the mailboxes from one AD Forest with Exchange 2007 to another AD
Forest.
Unfortunately, we have 2 AD 2003 Forests where Exchange 2007 and user
accounts (user accounts used to access Exchange) in one forest, Forest "A"
and all other resources (duplicate user accounts, machine accounts (users
workstations), Citrix, File Servers etc...) are in another 2003 Forest,
Forest "B". It has been decided that we will use domain B only and so
Exchange will need to be deployed in to domain B using the same SMTP domain.
This site http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2006/11/02/430289.aspx points
out the move-mailbox command in ESM and lays out a basic process for actually
moving mailboxes, but I would like to take a step back run some thoughts on
the overall process by this group. I will leave the BES 4.1 discussion out
of this.
1. Build out a new Exchange server in domain B. Obviously use different IP
address, different server name, but same SMTP domain defined in Exchange.
2. Use ADMT to move all dist lists, contact records and mailboxes from the
old server in domain A to the new server in domain B.
3. Use the move-mailbox command to move all mailboxes over to the new
Exchange server.
4. Update external DNS to reflect new Exchange IP.
5. Confirm Exchange services (OWA etc) are functioning correct on the new
system.
6. Update Outlook clients with the new Exchange Server name.
7. Perform cleanup of old system and decommission it.
What am I overlooking here? I know I need to further develop each step, but
I am just defining the general steps at this point. Any additional web sites
with pertinent information for would be helpful. Thanks in advance.