Moving the IMC

[jlmartini]

We are going to be in the process of moving mailboxes to another exchange server in the same site and will eventually remove the old exchange server. During this process I will be moving the mailboxes to the new server. I will have to eventually install the IMC on the new server but what happens to the internet mail messages during the move process, since this will not be done all at once? When I move a mailbox to the new server how will it route internet messages to the new box? Thanks!

 

[mantislee]

As long as these servers are in the same site (which they would have to be to do your moves) the servers will communicate with each other. Meaning, if an email comes in on OLDEX, which the DNS/Firewall is pointing to, then exchange will know to forward the email to the other server if that's where the person exists.

I've just completed this process actually. What I did was create the new server in the same site. If using Ex5.5 upgrade to SP4 this fixes a mailbox move issue. Then gradually move all mailboxes over to the new server. After everyone was moved I installed IMS on the new server. I am currently running IMS on both servers but only the old server sends mail out to the internet and this server has no one left on it, all it does is forward mail to the new server and the internet. My final step will be to adjust the DNS so it points to the new server and kill the old one.

It's time consuming because you don't want to loose anyone's emails, so I did it gradually. But if you can schedule down time (depends on how much you have to move) and just move everyone at once it would much more efficent.

I have plenty of links if you want to look at them on moving mailboxes.

Mantislee
Systems Administrator
mantislee@yahoo.com

 

[jlmartini]

Thanks.

I would like to look at those links.

In a test environment I tested how to move the mailboxes. Everything seem to go okay, but it was a very small test environment. I will be using 5.5 sp4.