Upgrade to Windows 2003 and Exchange 2003

[Darren_Broughto]

We're currently running Enterprise Vault V5 SP5, on a Windows 2000 Server SP4, working with Exchange 2000 SP3. We're about to upgrade these servers to Windows 2003 SP2, and Exchange 2003 SP2. Is anyone aware of any problems or oddities we should look out for. I've rung their support on several occasions but still waiting for a response, I'll take that matter up separately.

Thanks

[Micah_Wyenn_2]

Darren,
It's really hard to say off the cuff if you'll experience problems without examining your infrastructure and architecture of EV. If you have a simple installation, and a minimum of modules (ie, just mailbox archiving), then you should feel pretty confident about the upgrade. I do recommend that you upgrade to 6.0sp2.

I guess the only thing you have to really worry about is making sure that your archive and retrievals tasks get translated in to 6.0 tasks successfully (ie, check permissions, and do test syncs). Be sure to take note if you start seeing dcom and/or other errors pop up in the event log.

The best advice any of us can really give is to make sure you've got a complete backup of your environment. Just in case.

micah

[Darren_Broughto]

Thanks for that Micah. Would you advise that we upgrade to V6 SP2, before the actual Windows and Exchange upgrade?

[Micah_Wyenn_2]

The order I'd go in:

Win2000 to Win2003 (with any AD infrastructure stuff that goes in to that)
*note* This would be an excellent time to subdivide your organization in to OU's to make it easier to apply GPO or EV policies to them (if you so desire)

EV5 to EV6.sp2
This will help you do the exchange upgrades

Exchange2000 to Exch2003

Using the vault to help the migration of exchange will be a biiiiiiiiiiig time saver (as you're exmerging shortcuts instead of full mailboxes), esp if you're moving hardware.

micah