Migrating to Exchange Server 2007
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Keeping up with technology is what causes headaches for most people these days. Most companies hesitate to migrate to a newer software release, especially if back-end servers are involved. There's a good reason for that. In this article we will try to explain what such a migration involves. This is not just another software update, because lots of employees rely on Exchange Server.
Often, when major server roles are about to be migrated, specific steps must be taken. The first is requirements management, analyzing the costs and whether the upgrade benefits the company and your specific environment. Newer software tends to bring improvements, security enhancements, and new goodies to the table, but it's doubtful that everyone really needs those additions or can afford them.
Once the previous step is done and the results are positive, then the next step is migration planning. The people that are responsible for the task(s) are looking into the situation: finding out what it involves, how it's possible for their environment, and actually scheduling the task and setting up deadlines. It is generally recommended that you set up a "test" environment where the migration is done-so it doesn't directly affect your employees.
Of course, it need not be mentioned that backing up your current setup can be a life-saver. Once this is done and the migration succeeds within the test domain (either via test physical machines set up in an isolated environment-usually called as a lab- to simulate "tougher" administration tasks, or simply relying on virtualization approaches), the migration can be carried out on the real environment.
Whenever possible, you should always opt for a "coexistence" kind of migration. This way there won't be any down time, which means you will not be required to work overtime/during the night, nor will employees be affected by your maintenance actions. Additionally, when or rather if things go wrong, you can always roll back and use your already-existing working solution. If done well, coexisting migrations are harmless.
Having said this, throughout this article we will discuss how to migrate in such a coexistence setup with either Exchange Server 2003 or 2000. Let's begin.
Next: Coexistence Migration >>
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