Upgrading to Exchange 2010 SP1 - Issues?

[Judy_Glazier]

I have a customer who just purchased EV 9.0 SP1 and is worried about upgrading his Exchange 2010 server to SP1. 

He realizes that he must be at SP1 in order to implement EV however he is worried about Exchange 2010 SP1 as he has heard it is flacky and can cause a lot of issues.

I realize this is an EV forum, however I am hoping that someone can comment on issues they might be (or not) having with regards to Exchange 2010 SP1.

I would like to reassure my customer that he should not be concerned.

Judy Glazier

[GertjanA]

Hello Judy,

I've upgraded only a testlab to 2010SP1, to prove EV9.01 works ;) (it does btw)

I've looked up some of the issues, and most of them are described here: http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2010/09/01/456094.aspx Do read the comments!

When reading the site, there are some issues not applicable (moving mbx from 2003 to 2010sp1 for instance). There are also several issues with ActiveSync, but they are 'resolvable'.

If you suppport also E2010 for this customer, you might be busy for a while, but than run E2010SP1 stable.

I'd go for the SP1, than install EV. Keep the mailboxes small, make Exchange and the customer happy!

[JesusWept3]

Make sure you install the move archive, journal and A6 queue hotfixes otherwise you will have a painful EV9 installation, and also the EV9 SP1 cumulative hotfix for the clients

[Judy_Glazier]

Hello and thanks Gertjan

Actually my customer had read that document that you posted and that is why he is so worried about Exchange 2010 SP1.

I guess he will just have to decide if he wants to proceed or not.

As a side note.  I too wrote the EV 9 STS exam and unfortunately only got 72% so I will have to re-write it.  I got 100% on all the Scenario based questions but it was those weirdly worded multiple choice questions and the ones about Technical Benefits of EV that got me into trouble.  By the way I got 92% on the EV 8 exam, but feel pretty stupid about the EV9 exam.

I had completed the Virtual Course for EV 9 on PartnerNet and read through all the pdf files, but didn't remember anything covered about some of the questions asked.  Even though I have been successfully implementing EV for over 8 years I figured after writing this exam that I may be in the wrong business.  And this exam only covered mailbox archiving for Exchange.  Imagine if it covered, Journaling, File System Archiving and Sharepoint as well.  Not to mention DA & CA.  OMG that would have been a killer.

Judy

[Judy_Glazier]

 Thanks for the heads up on the hotfixes.

Judy

[JesusWept3]

When I worked for Symantec I was actually one of the dozen or so that wrote both the EV 2007 and EV8 exams, it was decided at the time that because the exchange part was by far the most installed product and it was so big by itself that that is what we'd certify on But yeah there are some wrong questions in there and some with multiple answers that are correct, unfortunately it's hard to agree on everything especially when documentation says it should do this, training says something else and past experience says another Luckily because I knew all the answers I didn't have to take the exam, I did however take the EV9 exam and got I think 85%? however on the advantages of ev it gave me 0%, but then again I'm a tech, not a sales person :)

[GertjanA]

It's a relief to see that two people I know of are experienced EV-people also score relatively low. (I scored something like 87%, which was enough), and do seem to have issues with the same things I did.

Thanks.

As for the hotfixes, I would also apply those. As for the SP1 for Exchange I think that is a 'install and see'. It is a requirement for EV, and as MS will get some hotfixes to resolve issues, or KB-articles, I would not worry too much. There are workarounds for most reported issues, and these issues do not happen at every site. just occasionally.

GJ

[Ameen]

I just implemented Exchange server 2010 SP1 and EV 9 in my environment and there are no much issues. As far I know if you have good plan then no need to worry, you just have to do it in ur test environment and make sure that u are ready to go.

Only issue i have here is about the Outlook 2010 implementation! For outlook 2010 there is not good EV client [DCOM] available yet and my customeres [Users] are used to the DCOM client. Problem here is to teach the new client to users and that is like a new project. Bussiness said if we need to educate the users then why cant we go for Exchange 2010 archive? I am in a tough time now!

Ameen.