New server in the DAG Group

[sandrine_goetha]

Hello,

Once again I need your help.

Environment Exchange 2010 and EV 9.0.2 for Exchange.

We are migrating our physical servers( MBX1 and MBX2) to virtual ones for this we created new virtual Exchange servers ( VMBX1 and VMBX2) in the DAG.

My question concerns the mailboxes needed to take those Exchange servers in the EV environment.

We had : EV1 achiving MBX1 and MBX2 ( 2 physical machines)

we will have : EV1 archiving MBX1, MBX2( physical) and VMBX1, VMBX2 ( virtual).

Do I need to create new EV mailboxes per Exchange Machine or can I reuse the ones from the old servers ( mbx1 and mbx2) ( of course I would make them active on the virtual machine) ?

I hope I'm clear enough .

Thank you for any help.

[LCT]

How are you migrating? I mean, are you adding new servers on the virtual DAG and then use Move mailboxes?

You will need to set permissions for the virtual exchange 2010 servers and then target the virtual exchange 2010 servers individually (NOT DAG name), of course you need to create new system mailboxes on the virtual exchange servers before you can target them.

You'll prbably need this as well.

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH48928

Once migration is done you then decomission the physical exchange servers and then remove their targets on the EV environment. Uninstall and reinstall MSMQ on the EV server to clean up (but this is not essential unless you want a clean MSMQ view). 

Hope that helps.

[LCT]

If you are not familiar with exchange 2010 DAG with EV here's the whitepaper:

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH144726

BTW, if you need to reinstall MSMQ, ensure that all the queues are empty first. :)

[Jeff_Shotton]

Uninstalling MSMQ is a little drastic when you can right click > delete on each queue. The names have the exchange server target in by default so should be easy to identify. And if you DO accidentally get the wrong ones, then dont worry - EV will recreate them. DO make sure they are empty first though.

Regards,

Jeff

[sandrine_goetha]

Thank you  for your answers.

To be honest  I don't understand your of course : why can't I use the old system Mailbox if I move it first on my new server ?

I know to configure it you need to have a mailbox on the exchange server but after EV runs even if the system mailbox is on another node (as nobody can never be sure that all the active db's are on the same Exchange server " node" in a DAG) the archiving takes place.

I don't know hoe the Exchange people are planning their migration but due to the amount of "move" in our organization this registry key is configured since years.

And I read this paper (http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH144726 )

where it is written that to create a new mailbox is "best practice" and not written mandatory so I just wanted to be sure.

Thank you again for taking the time to answer me.

[LCT · Accepted solution]

The reason why I use, of course, is because if you are migrating users from one exchange server to another you need EV to have access to current EV server as well as the new exchange server, therefore you need to create a new system mailbox on the new exchange server. If you move the system mailbox then how will you continue to archive the users on the current exchange server? Well, you can then create a system mailbox on the current EV server but you might as well create a new mailbox on the new exchange server. Technically you are right, you can move the system mailbox from the old server to new server and that's why the whitepaper suggests as best practice rather than mandatory config.