For an administrator who manages public folders in their Exchange organization, the introduction of Exchange 2007 poses somewhat of a dilemma as to how to administer public folders that exist on Exchange 2007. There are however some easy ways to complete regular administrative tasks using the combination of previous versions of the ESM, Exchange Management Shell as well as PFDAVAdmin tool.
NOTE: This blog post does not talk about upcoming Exchange 2007 SP1 Public Folder user interface added to the Exchange Management Console. We will blog about that separately. For more information on Exchange 2007 SP1, please refer to the following blog post: http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2007/02/23/435699.aspx
Let's go through some common scenarios:
1. How do I discover where replicas of a public folder exist?
It is important to know where the replicas reside for purposes of migration, pubic folder referrals and backups. You can determine where the public folder replicas are from a number of different places:
- From Exchange 2003 Exchange System Manager (ESM) choose a public folder in the hierarchy, right click > properties and then choose the "Replication" tab and the servers that contain replicas will be listed.
This is also where you can add or remove Exchange 2007 server's public folder store as a replica.
- From the Exchange Management Shell I can run the following command to view a list of the replicas in the public folder hierarchy. This can be done with the public folder hierarchy or the system folder hierarchy as follows:
Public Folders:
Get-publicfolder -recurse |fl name,replicas
As a best practice, include the servername in the public folder store name to avoid confusion.
For System Folders:
Get-public folder \non_ipm_subtree |fl name, replicas
- From PFDAVAdmin connect to the public folder store of either the Exchange 2000, 2003 or 2007. Click on a Public Folder and then choose the replicas tab on the right pane to discover the public folder replicas:
2. How do I move replicas to Exchange 2007?
When migrating public folders, the hierarchy and the data must be moved to the new Exchange 2007 server before the existing server can be decommissioned or the data will be lost. Replicas can be added to folders individually through the Exchange 2003 ESM but can be done more efficiently as follows:
- Use Exchange 2003 SP2 version of the ESM to do a "Move All Replicas" from the Exchange 2003 public folder store
- Use the following Exchange Management Shell script:
Moveallreplicas.ps1 –server<sourceserver> -newserver<destinationserver>
Note: Scripts are found at %SystemDrive%\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\Scripts. To run a script, type the following in the Exchange Management Shell:
[PS] C:\>cd $exscripts
[PS] C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\Scripts>.\Moveallreplicas.ps1
- To add or remove a server from a public folder replica's properties including subfolders you can use the following two scripts:
RemoveReplicaFromPFRecursive.ps1 –TopPubicFolder <\folder> –Server toRemove <servername>
AddReplicatoPFRecursive.ps1 –TopPulblicFolder <\folder> -ServerToAdd <servername>
3. How can I tell if public folder data has replicated to Exchange 2007?
Before we remove the last Exchange 2000/2003 server, we need to verify that the content has been fully replicated to prevent data loss. The easiest way to do this is through Exchange 2003 ESM. Browse to each server and look at the public folder instances. You will be able to determine what data has replicated to the Exchange 2007 server by comparing the size of each folder.
For an Exchange 2003 server:
You can do the same for an Exchange 2007 server.
Viewing the Exchange 2007 public folders in Exchange 2003 ESM has some limitations. It is possible to see the size of the public folders when looking in the public folder instances, but it is impossible to see the content. The only way to view content in Exchange 2007 RTM is to connect using an Outlook client.
You can generate information about public folders and system folders in the Exchange management shell. To see details such as item count and last access time, use the following CMDlet:
Get-publicfolderstatistics
This information will help compare content replicated between the source and destination servers.
Additionally, you can also use the PFDavadmin content report functionality.
4. How can I force public folder replication to Exchange 2007?
Replication of information from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007 is a combination of the hierarchy information and the content for each of the replicas.
To initiate hierarchy and content replication, use the "Resend changes" and "Synchronize content" options in Exchange 2003 ESM. Read more about those here.
Use the following Exchange Management Shell script to push hierarchy from a 2007 server:
Update-publicfolderhierarchy –server <2007 server that is the source of the replication hierarchy>
Use the following Exchange Management Shell script to push content from a 2007 server :
Update-publicfolder –id <public folder id parameter> -server <2007 server that is the source of the replication data>
Of course, you can read more about CMDlets used above in Exchange 2007 documentation.