Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Upgrade Guide

Exchange 2010 has been in the market for well over two years now and lots of blogs have been written for both design and deployment but still when I visit many customers, they ask me guidance on how to upgrade to Exchange 2010 from an older version of Exchange. I thought to share a sort of high level deployment/upgrade steps that you need to take to upgrade from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010. We are assuming here that customer has only one Internet facing site, later I will add additional steps when you have multiple Internet and non-Internet facing sites.

  • All Exchange 2010 servers should be joined to domain and updated.
  • First to deploy the E2010 CAS and HUB server in Internet facing site. Most customers are deploying combination of Hub transport and CAS roles.
    • To install the CAS and Hub transport prerequisites, run PowerShell as administrator
      • Import-Module ServerManager
      • Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework,RSAT-ADDS,Web-Server,Web-Basic-Auth,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-Metabase,Web-Net-Ext,Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console,WAS-Process-Model,RSAT-Web-Server,Web-ISAPI-Ext,Web-Digest-Auth,Web-Dyn-Compression,NET-HTTP-Activation,Web-Asp-Net,Web-Client-Auth,Web-Dir-Browsing,Web-Http-Errors,Web-Http-Logging,Web-Http-Redirect,Web-Http-Tracing,Web-ISAPI-Filter,Web-Request-Monitor,Web-Static-Content,Web-WMI,RPC-Over-HTTP-Proxy –Restart
      • Set-Service NetTcpPortSharing -StartupType Automatic
  • Run Setup /PrepareSchema
  • Run Setup /preparead
  • Install Exchange 2010 CAS and Hub + SP2 in Internet facing site
  • Create CAS Array as below
    • new-clientaccessarray-FQDN outlook.Contoso.com -Site "Internet facing site" -Name "outlook.Contoso.com"
    • Add the record in DNS for outlook.Contoso.com in internal DNS
  • Test Outlook web access URL from internal computers
  • Necessary firewall and Reverse publishing configuration to be done to support the below URLs
  • Deploy the E2010 Mailbox server in Internet facing site
    • To install the prerequisites for mailbox role, run PowerShell as administrator
      • Import-Module ServerManager
      • Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework,RSAT-ADDS,Web-Server,Web-Basic-Auth,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-Metabase,Web-Net-Ext,Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console,WAS-Process-Model,RSAT-Web-Server –Restart
  • Install Exchange 2010 Mailbox server + SP2

  • Create a new DAG and assign an IP address to DAG

  • Add all mailbox servers to Internet facing site DAG

  • Add required mailbox databases and copies in the DAG.

  • Test mailbox creation in Exchange 2010

  • Test mail flow.

  • Migrate test mailboxes from E2K7 to E2010

  • Transition the CAS URL so that mail.Contoso.com will point to Exchange 2010 and webmail.Contoso.com will point to Exchange 2007 CAS servers as per steps defined in https://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2009/11/20/3408856.aspx

  • Migrate the Pilot mailboxes from E2K7 to E2010

  • Test mailbox creation in Exchange 2010

  • Enable Outlook Anywhere on all CAS servers and remove the OA endpoint from old Exchange servers

  • Move OAB to Exchange 2010 server in Internet facing site

  • Migrate any remaining mailboxes to Exchange 2010 servers

  • Migrate any connectors and public folders to Exchange 2010 servers

  • Decommission old Exchange 2007 servers

Read my favorites blogs:

Designing a backup less Exchange 2010 Architecture

Step by step guide for upgrading Active Directory from Microsoft Windows 2003 to Microsoft Windows Server 2008

Microsoft Exchange 2010 CAS Array – Steps and Recommendations

Appear Offline in Microsoft Office Communicator Server 2007

Microsoft Exchange 2010 Test cases

Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Disaster Recovery