Replacing old Domain controllers

Hi Guys,

I was wondering whether someone could help me with the following:

we have 2 new servers that we want to replace old server (Domain Controllers) and exchange server. we have some applications that are machine name specific and therefore have to keep one server named as one of the old ones. we would like to rename the exchange server to a different name than the current; is this possible? would it not cause any problems? we were thinking about building the new servers outside our production domain, but the problem is how do we add them to the existing network without causing any problems?

Thanks

 

As far as Exchange is concerned, what version is it? You may just want to bring it up as a 2nd Exchange server in the Exchange Org and then migrate your mailboxes to it. It isn't all that bad of a proceedure. If your users are using Outlook it will be smart enough to know the mailboxes moved when it reads Active Directory and sees the new location.

 

Thanks for the response. the version of exchange is 2003 server Standard Edition, running on win2k. the other issue is that the current exchange server is also a DC and we would like the new exchange server to be only a member server. isn't that going to cause in migration problem?

Thanks

 

I don't think it will cause you any problems. Are you going to Exchange 2003? Thankfully the Migration Tool can do direct 5.5 --> 2003.

1) Bring new Exchange server online on as a member server.
2) Use Exchange Migration Tool to migrate from 5.5 to 2003.
3) Shut down old Exchange Server services for a couple weeks to verify its all working.
4) Decommission old Exchange 5.5 Server (I guess just uninstall Exchange in your case).

It will be nice in the end as your DC won't be doing double duty anymore. Don't forget to take care of your x.400, SRS, and other fun things while setting up 2003.

This might help a little and MS' site has good docs as well.

http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Exchange_2003_Upgrade_Checklist.html

 

Thank again for the reply,
In my previous post I made a mistake; we have upgraded to exchange 2003 already. all we want to do is replace the server with a new one, and also sease the FSMO roles and transfer them to a new different server.

Regards

 

Ok, I'm a little confused at this point so bear with me. You currently have 1 server doing both Domain Controller and Exchange 2003 functions. Are you looking to move both of these to a new piece of hardware, or only move one of them to a new piece of hardware and leave the existing server running with whatever one you leave on it?

 

Yes, we currently have one of our servers running the Exchange server as well as being the primary domain controller (w2k server). what we want to do: We have two new machines, so we want one of the new machines to be the primary domain controller, and the other one to be JUST the exchange server (as per microsoft recommendation). we have exchange 2003 standard edition.

On a different note: is it possible to restore exchange mailboxes from a backup tape to a different machine (with a different name and IP addresses)and different domain from the one that the backup was originally made from?

Thanks again

 

Domain controllers

 

You need to clean up active directory. By properly demoting a DC back to a member server this will happen. If you don't then there will be replication links and other fun stuff left behind.

 

Clean up AD? does this process need doing eventhough we would not be upgrading OSs? I thought that using DC promo would do the job? are there any other processes involved once you DC promo the server?

Thanks