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dan_uk_1984

Member Since: 12 Nov 2008
Location: Bude, Cornwall
Posts: 4014

2006 Range Rover Supercharged 4.2 SC V8 Tonga Green

Hardcore IT Question

Our company has recently bought/merged with another company. The powers that be have decided they want a new (website & e-mail) domain encompassing both, and of course, immediately.

For the time being both sites are running on their own domains, so Bill@a.com gets his emails and Ben@b.com gets his e-mails. We want to be able to send Bill@c.com and Ben@c.com an e-mail and it get to the right person.

We have Exchange 2k3 at Site A and Site B they are currently independent of each other bar a domain level trust across VPN.

We want to move to a single exchange environment – but not today.

Idea’s very much welcomed!

D

12th Jan 2011 1:41pm

iT LAD

Member Since: 08 Jul 2010
Location: Surrey
Posts: 1350

Dan,

I would save all the hassle/maintenance and go with a hosted exchange system...

12th Jan 2011 3:18pm

dan_uk_1984

Member Since: 12 Nov 2008
Location: Bude, Cornwall
Posts: 4014

iT LAD wrote:
Dan,

I would save all the hassle/maintenance and go with a hosted exchange system...

More info me?

12th Jan 2011 3:22pm

Lookers Park Royal

Member Since: 30 Apr 2008
Location: London
Posts: 463

Microsoft Exchange?

James

12th Jan 2011 3:25pm

dan_uk_1984

Member Since: 12 Nov 2008
Location: Bude, Cornwall
Posts: 4014

Lookers Park Royal wrote:
Microsoft Exchange?

James

We run Exchange 2003 in both locations, as well as seperate AD's in both locations with a trust between the two.

Question - when exchange connects to an e-mail host server does it retreive ALL e-mails or just e-mails that belong to its known mailboxes?

I appreciate that is a vague question

12th Jan 2011 3:34pm

iT LAD

Member Since: 08 Jul 2010
Location: Surrey
Posts: 1350

Lookers Park Royal wrote:
Microsoft Exchange?

James

Classic....

He's got that already James...

Last edited by iT LAD on 12th Jan 2011 4:04pm. Edited 1 time in total

12th Jan 2011 3:57pm

iT LAD

Member Since: 08 Jul 2010
Location: Surrey
Posts: 1350

dan_uk_1984 wrote:
iT LAD wrote:
Dan,

I would save all the hassle/maintenance and go with a hosted exchange system...

More info me?

Dan, your exchange will be hosted on servers outside your building in a data centre (Not your servers)... you rent per user.

You just configure outlook to connect via HTTP

Job done, no hassle... A piece of Pi ss to configure...

12th Jan 2011 4:01pm

iT LAD

Member Since: 08 Jul 2010
Location: Surrey
Posts: 1350

Hey, then you will be (sort of) "in the cloud"...

12th Jan 2011 4:04pm

mzplcg

Member Since: 26 May 2010
Location: Warwickshire. England. The Commonwealth.
Posts: 4029

2014 Range Rover Vogue SE SDV8 Corris Grey

MS Exchange can be configured to host multiple email domains on a single Org. It can also be configured to relay for specific domains.

I would host the new C.com domain on the site which will become the master ultimately and then relay stuff for C.com where the user is not found to the other. Use recipient policies to add the mail addresses to the user accounts.

You could also move all the users to A.com and then also host B.com and C.com on that mail org. You have an AD trust in place so another simple solution. Plenty of tools to help do it as well.

Done that several times during mergers/takeovers etc. Works like a champ.

Or, go for hosted as IT Lad says, assuming of course you're happy firing your mail admins

Dom.

12th Jan 2011 4:49pm

Dolphinboy

Member Since: 07 Dec 2009
Location: Bristol
Posts: 3182

dan, have you tried switching it off and starting it up again? (I'll get my coat!! ) Just always wanted to say this to an IT peep.

12th Jan 2011 5:39pm

Avi

Member Since: 24 Sep 2010
Location: North West
Posts: 309

mzplcg wrote:
MS Exchange can be configured to host multiple email domains on a single Org. It can also be configured to relay for specific domains.

I would host the new C.com domain on the site which will become the master ultimately and then relay stuff for C.com where the user is not found to the other. Use recipient policies to add the mail addresses to the user accounts.

You could also move all the users to A.com and then also host B.com and C.com on that mail org. You have an AD trust in place so another simple solution. Plenty of tools to help do it as well.
Done that several times during mergers/takeovers etc. Works like a champ.

Or, go for hosted as IT Lad says, assuming of course you're happy firing your mail admins

Dom.

We've done it using this method a couple of times Apologies if i've posted this on my phone and it contains strange spelling and punctuation.. i just can't be bothered to correct it

12th Jan 2011 7:25pm

dan_uk_1984

Member Since: 12 Nov 2008
Location: Bude, Cornwall
Posts: 4014

Thanks guys, ran out of time at work to finish this discussion. We have litterally been given a couple of days notice to implement this. It aint guna be pretty.

I think we're going for the main site re-directing to the other site.

May have to post again tomorrow - many thanks for your help. Beers all round!

D

12th Jan 2011 7:41pm

mzplcg

Member Since: 26 May 2010
Location: Warwickshire. England. The Commonwealth.
Posts: 4029

dan_uk_1984 wrote:
We have litterally been given a couple of days notice to implement this. It aint guna be pretty.D

Hmmm, that's a recipe for a train wreck. If you want help with the planning shoot me a PM with some contact details.

Seriously, if you've ever been in the middle of a MS Exchange collapse you'll know it's more painful than amputating your own genitals with a blunt instrument.

Write out your plan, get someone to check it and then get a second review from another person. at the same time, write your backout plan and clearly identify the point of no return in the timeline. I assume you're going to do this over the weekend, yes? You need to think about MX records, DNS replication etc etc.

Also think about where the mail is going to stack whilst you're offline. Again, do you have a perimeter mail hygiene device? Perhaps build a quick & dirty IIS box to collect the mail whilst MS Exch is offline.

Essential pre-requisites would be:
MX records. Add a second (Higher cost) pointing to the server which will be the main host for all 3 domains. Do it ASAP so the 13 root servers replicate it out. Don't forget the PTR record while you're at it.
Add the C.com domain to the main server ASAP. Test it out thoroughly and use a recipient policy to add addresses to a few selected test users.
Only once this is working properly should you then try to swing B.com over. I would go for the following weekend personally as it gives time for proper testing.
At that point, migrate some test users from B.com to the new box and test that mail can be sent and received internally from A.com and C.com. Then test that B.com can send from the new box to something like hotmail. receive can't be tested until you drop the SMTP daemon on the original B.com box.
Think about how you're going to move mailboxes over. Exmerge is a great tool but doesn't update the Outlook clients. The Move Mailbox tool is OK in smaller batches and does update the client. Unless these mail orgs are tiny (<100 mailboxes) you need to think about comms links and mailbox sizes when choosing your tool.

Last, and most important, what is your DR plan? How recently was it tested? You might just need it.

Dom.

12th Jan 2011 9:18pm

iT LAD

Member Since: 08 Jul 2010
Location: Surrey
Posts: 1350

mzplcg wrote:
dan_uk_1984 wrote:
We have litterally been given a couple of days notice to implement this. It aint guna be pretty.D

Hmmm, that's a recipe for a train wreck. If you want help with the planning shoot me a PM with some contact details.

Seriously, if you've ever been in the middle of a MS Exchange collapse you'll know it's more painful than amputating your own genitals with a blunt instrument.

Dom.

Very true indeed....

13th Jan 2011 11:11am

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