Previous Experience Required 1

[Dinkytoy]

No this isn't a job advert .

My Exchange experience is limited, I've used 2003 a *little* but really the last exchange I used was 5.5.

We are currently looking at getting in Exchange 2007 for our 30 mailbox based company as a replacement for an old version of MDaemon. Our AD structure is very simple single domain 2 DCs all 2003 server.

Now the tricky part, the nature of our company means that we are actually hosting 3rd party mailboxes on MDaemon and I'm fairly certain that these, as they are outside our AD structure will not be able to come across to Exchange. No big deal, MDaemon works and we can use it a while longer. The question is really about Migration of our own accounts from MDaemon.

Is it possible to migrate mailboxes from MDaemon across to Exchange, or am I looking at re-creating accounts and having old mail stored locally on PCs as PSTs.

I'm also thinking about the layout since we will require the Edge Transport server role, I understand this needs to be on different hardware to mailbox/public folder server, but I'm wondering how OWA fits into these roles?

If anyone has some advice, links or guides I'd appreciate it muchly. I'm back to try and churn through some of the 500 odd page deployment guide.

 

[Stevehewitt]

Can't help with MDaemon, but it's true you will need a dedicated (hardened) server for your Edge box. This sits in the DMZ.

OWA is completly seperate. You'll have firewall rules that allow mail into your Edge server that's in your DMZ, and then back out from your Edge server into your internal network.
OWA require HTTPS opened (443) on your firewall to the relevant IP of your Client Access Server (or in your case just the only Exchange server you have)

Cheers,




Steve.

"They have the internet on computers now!" - Homer Simpson

 

[58sniper]

we will require the Edge Transport server role

If that a requirement by the company? It's not required for Exchange 2007. But it does need to be hardened and in your DMZ.

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Microsoft Exchange MVP
Want to know how email works? Read for yourself -

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2821.txt

 

[Stevehewitt]

An alternative (which we put in place) is an outsourced solution such as MessageLabs. That way it's stopped at the cloud level (so not taking up your bandwidth) plus there's no capital layout for hardware or anything. (Also your Exchange server can be limited at the firewall to only take mail from MessageLabs, thus limiting your server exposure to the world!)

*Other message filtering services are avaliable!! ;-)




Steve.

"They have the internet on computers now!" - Homer Simpson

 

[Dinkytoy]

Just did a little more reading and Server Edge role probably won't be required initially.

Organising some test servers and an ad structure I can actually play with at the moment to have a play and see what happens. Thanks for the input guys, anyone with experience of MDaemon to Exchange migration: you're input would be much loved right now .