Migrating from nt 4 to 2003.

[fitzie22]

I currently have multi domain environment and a file server with 2000 AD. I then have a nt 4 on a separate domain with exchange 5.5. we are upgrading all to 2003. I know that you can't do an inplace upgrade of nt4 and 5.5 which is fine. What I am planning to do is do an inplace upgrade on the 2000 master catalog server first. then insatll 2003 on another server which will be the new exchange server. The next step is where I am a little fuzzy. I was either going to install ad on the email server and join it to the file server domain. I am concerned though that when I run the migration wizard or exmerge that it will not have a trust relationship. I guess what I am asking is for anyone that has run into a similar situation? What about not puttting on ad on the email server and just putting it in the workgroup and running exmerge.
Thanks

 

[xmsre]

Exchange 2003 requires active directory; either Windows 200 SP3 + or Windows 2003. Exchange 2003 does not have it's own directory like 5.5, but uses AD as the directory service. You will have to have AD somewhere.

In your current environment, it souns like you have a master accounts domain with 3 resource domains. The first thing you need to do is decide what the end state structure will look like after migration. You may want to restructure and collapse some of the domains.

A typical scenario is a two domain forest with an empty root and a child domain. You would probably want to start the empty root fresh, and use the in-place upgrade method for the child domain. This would be your current master accounts domain. You would use a tool like admt version 2 to collapse the resource domains into the child domain.

If you don't have SQL or third party apps based on MSDE in the picture, ADMT v2 does a great job with the migration. If you have SQL or MSDE, and are using integrated Windows security, then you'll want something like Aelita DMW to migrate the SQL servers.

If your current exchange environment is a single site, then join a new exchange 2003 server to the existing org/site and movemailbox away till your heart's content. If you have multiple exchange sites currently, then you'll need a more detailed migration plan for exchange. What is your current Exchange organization structure?