Q&A Log from TechNet Webcast: Exchange Server 2010 Upgrade and Co-existence with Exchange 2007 and 2003 (02/04/2010)
As I feared, I totally forgot to post the Q&A Log from the Exchange 2010 Upgrade webcast I delivered on February 4, 2010. Thank you Brian for sending me a "gentle” nudge to remind me.
As usual, I did not take the time to edit the questions to correct any spellings or grammar so they appear as they were typed by the person asking the question. I did my best to make sure my answers were grammatically correct and used correct spelling. If your question did not get answered fully or you feel I missed something, please let me know. Thanks for your patience!
Harold Wong
Questions and Answers Log:
TechNet Webcast: Exchange Server 2010 Upgrade and Coexistence with Exchange Server 2007 and 2003
Question: IS Exchange server 2010 support only 64 bit ?
Answer: Yes, it is only available in 64 bit.
Question: We have about 100 GB's worth of pst's in our network that we want to make accessible through the mailbox Archive feature. If we were to import those 100 GB's of pst into an Exchange 2010 Archive store how much physical db/physical disk space would they take up? 100 GB? Less? More?
Answer: Boy, this really does depend. There is a certain level of compression available with PSTs and Exchange performs a certain level of compression within the database. For capacity planning, I personally would assume at least the same amount will be used.
Question: What are some general rules of thumb for sizing mailbox when converting from 2003 to 2010? We currently have a 40 GB store and allow 50MB in 2003? Could/should we increase mboxsize to 200MB? 400MB? Any helpful general suggestions?
Answer: I will not provide recommendations on whether you should increase mailbox size limits when moving from Exchange 2003/2007 to Exchange 2010. That is a decision each person / company needs to make based on their internal criteria. If you have enough storage and can meet the necessary SLAs when increasing and that is a requirement / need, then by all means do so. Please use the Mailbox Server Role Requirements Calculator to help you size your server for the Mailbox Role: https://msexchangeteam.com/files/12/attachments/entry453145.aspx.
Question: How many copies available Vs Entreprise & Standard Edition ?
Answer: Not exactly sure what you mean by “copies” but I will take my best stab at answering what I think is the question. Standard Edition supports up to 5 databases and Enterprise Edition supports up to 100 databases. Both editions support database sizes of 16 TB.
Question: As for win2k8 version (std vs ent), Ent is required because DAG use cluster services. This means we can have std version on other ex roles servers ?
Answer: If you are going to install CAS, HT and / or UM on different servers from the MBX role, then yes, you can use Windows Server 2008 / 2008 R2 Standard Edition.
Question: What would be the advantages of being at a Windows 2008 AD?
Answer: From a pure Exchange 2010 perspective, there really isn’t an advantage. From a Windows Server perspective, there are benefits depending on what you are using from an AD perspective as well as a performance perspective.
Question: What about Small Business Ed?
Answer: There have been no public announcements of when Exchange Server 2010 will be included as part of Small Business Server.
Question: But for CAS servers ....is there any limitation for functionality (within Exchange 2010) if we used 2008/R2 Standard Edition?
Answer: No. The only limitation is around hardware support from a Server perspective. An example is 2008 R2 Standard supports 4 CPU sockets while Enterprise supports 8 CPU sockets.
Question: If we rollout a CAS, Hub and Mailbox on separate servers, would the Mailbox server only need to be on a Windows Server 2008 SP2 Enterprise if we decide to do DAG?
Answer: That is part of it as well as the hardware you plan to use. Please see my answer to the previous question.
Question: When you say that Read Only Domain Controllers are not supported, do you mean that if you're using Exchange you can't HAVE any redundant read only DCs or that the Exchange will need to be tied only to the other DC with read rights?
Answer: Starting with Server 2008, we introduced the Read Only Domain Controller (RODC) to address security issues around placing DCs in branch offices. The RODC does not contain a writeable copy of the database which is required by Exchange. In the AD Site that you deploy Exchange, you must have a writeable DC/GC. You can have as many RODCs in that site so long as you have at least one writeable DC/GC for Exchange to use.
Question: During the installation when it prompted you for the Exchange 2003 server, would it be better to use a Front-End or Back-end server?
Answer: You need to specify a Routing Group bridgehead server. It has been a while since I worked with Exchange 2003, but if your FE is the bridgehead server, then you would use the FE. If not, then use the BE.
Question: If i want to setup a test External Client Access URL for OWA, etc., how can i change it to the production later?
Answer: Hmm.. You want to setup a test environment using your production environment?? Not a good idea. However, if you happen to change your external URL at a later date, you would just need to reconfigure your servers using the appropriate CMDLET such as Set-OwaVirtualDirectory with the appropriate options.
Question: can I use differant name in exchnage 2010 not the same as exchange 2003
Answer: I’m not sure what you mean here, but if you are referring to a different Exchange Organization name, then the answer is No if you want to integrate the Exchange 2010 server into your existing 2003 environment. You can of course (and have to) use a different server name for the new Exchange 2010 server.
Question: can you still use a wildcard certificate?
Answer: Yes, Wildcard Certificates are supported by Exchange Server 2010.
Question: For 3rd party load balancers, is cookie-based session management a requirement?
Answer: There are different answers depending on the scenario. It does depend on the clients that you will be supporting and there are different possibilities based on the vendor you use.
Question: If you have EX2007, do you have to buy a NEW cert for EX2010? Or can you update the cert and use it on both?
Answer: Ultimately, if you plan to decommission the Exchange 2007 servers and can update the certificate from the vendor, then I say go for it.
Question: can you use wildcard certs instead of san's
Answer: We do support wildcard certs in Exchange 2010, but I highly recommend the use of SANs.
Question: We use DPM 07 for backup on our Exch2007sp2 system. Will we be able to continue to use this or will we need to upgrade DPM?
Answer: You will need DPM 2010 to backup Exchange Server 2010.
Question: Are we still using PowerShell version 1? Is there a way to upgrade to version 2 on Exchange 2007
Answer: Exchange Server 2010 uses PowerShell version 2.0. I would not mess with the PowerShell version on your Exchange 2007 Servers.
Question: Is there any difference in storage group configuration between 2007 and 2010?
Answer: Exchange Server 2010 has no Storage Groups.
Question: Where can I replay this meeting? I had to duck out for a few minutes and missed the part I wanted to see :(
Answer: You can find the replay here: https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032438996&EventCategory=5&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US.
Question: We do not use OWA on our exchange 2003 environment, rather Outlook clients. Do we still need to perform the certificate creation you discussed in the presentation?
Answer: You will still need certificates since all communication with Exchange Server 2010 is via secure methods (by default). When you install Exchange 2010, it will use a self-signed certificate, but I highly encourage you to use a CA to generate certificates (even if it is only an internal deployment). If you are using Outlook Anywhere or Exchange ActiveSync, you will definitely need a Public Certificate.
Question: PF Requirements. You stated that PF are no longer required for Outlook 2007 and above. My question relates to third party software i.e. Blackberry Enterprise Server...are PF required here, seems to be a grey area of convern?
Answer: My statement was related to core Outlook 2007 functionality with Exchange 2007 and above. If you have third party connectors that require the use of Public Folders, then you will still have to have them regardless of the version of Outlook in use.
Question: Hello, do you have to have both an external cert and internal cert or will the external cert cover all requirements?
Answer: It all depends on how you configure your name spaces.
Question: We are currently running Exchange 2003 with 250 mboxes. We have three MS servers in our topo - ISA, ExchFE, ExchBE. We plan to deploy two new Exch2010 servers - one CAS/HUB and one Mailbox. Any downsides to running HUB transport on same server as CAS in terms of smtp traffic relaying? Should HUB ever be run on a mailbox server?
Answer: The scenario you mention is fine. We absolutely support HT coexistence with MBX role..
Question: When moving mail boxes from 2003 to 2010. Is the transaction log space a concern only on the 2010 Server or also on the 2003 Server as well. Also does moving only a few boxes at a time reduce the requirement for space needed on the 2003 Server. Basically my 2003 Server is seriously low on space (hence the choice to upgrade to 2010)
Answer: The Transaction Log space concern is for the target server.
Question: When using ISA 2006, do you use the Exchange 2007 wizards/templates to connect to Exchange 2010 or is there/will there be an ISA update to take into account Exchange 2010?
Answer: I’m not sure if we will provide a new wizard/template for 2010, but currently, the 2007 wizard works fine. Just create the publishing rule and edit them to include the new virtual directories for 2010.
Question: Do you need to have AD DNS running or can you use another DNS such as Qip
Answer: You can use any DNS you want. With the reliance on AD, make sure AD can also use the DNS server(s).
Question: Can you please post the command to redirect owaVirtualDirectory from ex2010 to ex2003 on your blog?
Answer: I used the Set-OwaVirtualDirectory CMDLET: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb123515.aspx. In my demo, the command I used was:
Set-OwaVirtualDirectory –Exchange2003URL https://legacy.contoso.com/exchange
Question: Is there any guidance available for re-using/re-provisiong E2K7 64-bit capable Hardware while transitioning to E2K10.Most of the illustrations assume that tthere must be 1-to-1 Mapping availability of the HW for the target E2K10 server role
Answer: I have not seen any such guidance. With that said, I will provide “Harold’s” guidance. Since you cannot perform an in-place upgrade of your Exchange 2007 servers to Exchange 2010, you will have to deploy side by side. Before you can reuse an existing 2007 server, you must install a new 2010 server to replace that given role. If you have separation of roles in 2007 today, you will want to deploy 2010 in the following order – CAS, HT,UM, MBX. After switching your CAS to 2010, you can decommission your 2007 CAS servers and reuse them for HT and so on and so forth if it makes sense.