Exchange Server 2010 Troubleshooting Issues – Part II

First of all a HUGE THANKS to Yuval Sinay for putting this information together.

The following article will provide a summary on common issues in Exchange 2010 deployment in the Enterprise. The information in this article consists of my own experience and official Microsoft knowledgebase articles. Due to the fact that your Exchange environment may vary, please read the information carefully and test the suggestions from this article - in a lab that can demonstrate the current Exchange infrastructure.

The article is divided to the following chapters:

  1. General issues in Exchange 2010 deployment.

  2. Best practices in Exchange 2010 deployment.

  3. Common issues in Exchange 2007 migration to Exchange 2010.

  4. Common issues in Exchange 2003 migration to Exchange 2010.

Best practices in Exchange 2010 deployment

  • Before starting the implementation stage, verify that the third party products in your company (e.g. Antivirus, Backup, etc.) support Exchange 2010 and Windows 2008 R2.
  • Although you can install Exchange 2010 on Windows 2008 x64, I recommend using Windows 2008 R2 that provide a higher performance.
  • To use all Exchange 2010 features, you may need to upgrade the workstation to use Outlook 2010.
  • Exchange 2010 use RAM for most of its tasks. I recommend adding RAM to the server by estimated the future overhead on the server.
  • Microsoft is doing a great job to fix all the known issue in a short time. Please upgrade the environment to the latest service pack / hot-fix. Before starting moving mailboxes to the new Exchange 2010 system.
  • Consider to use Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise edition, so you can implement Exchange 2010 DAG in the future. Exchange 2010 DAG provides excellent high availability solution, that can provide you company 24/7 service.
  • Using Microsoft Best Practice analyzer can help you to find known issues in your environment.
  • Microsoft has released the tool “Exchange Pre-Deployment Analyzer” that can help you to map the Exchange system before you make changes on it. You can download this tool from this link.
  • Review Exchange 2010 System Requirements, before starting the Exchange deployment project.