Upgrading my company network

eidolon

eidolon

eidolon

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I work for a smallish company which has the following network setup.

1 x Windows NT4 server (acting as primary domain controller with file serving and SQL server roles)
1 x Windows NT4 server (acting as backup domain controller with Exchange server role)

We're looking to upgrade our accounts software which requires us to move to SQL 2005 and Windows 2003 server so I thought I'd ask for advice on the best way to tackle this.

The SQL/File server is probably straining a bit so it makes sense to split those roles onto 2 separate servers and the Exchange server can continue on its own server as before.

What order would you suggest I do the upgrade in? Due to time constraints I plan on doing the upgrade piece by piece so I'd planned on leaving the current Exchange server in place until the file server and SQL server had been set up (then change over to Exchange 2003). Any tips and pointers on how to progress?
 
Are you planning to upgrade the domain to 2003 or leave it and add the 2003 server to the NT4 domain as member server?

from what I remember Microsoft dont recommend having Exchange on a DC.
 
That is, unless you buy Small Business Server, which comes with Exchange, SQL Server and a bunch of other stuff. We use it at work, with about 40 users running MS CRM WSS and the usual file print & DC.
 
topher said:
Are you planning to upgrade the domain to 2003 or leave it and add the 2003 server to the NT4 domain as member server?

from what I remember Microsoft dont recommend having Exchange on a DC.
Click to expand...

I was planning to upgrade the domain to 2003. I was thinking of the following order of events

Add SQL 2005 server to domain as member server. Remove databases from old SQL server and point clients to new server.
Add Exchange 2003 server to domain as member server. Remove old Exchange 5.5 server from domain.
Add file server to domain and dcpromo it. Remove old file server

Would this work or am I better off starting with the file server/DC?
 
You want to get your AD in place on the new DC first - Exchange 2003 alters the AD schema as part of the install process (the /domainprep and /forestprep switches before installing Exchange).
 
So would the best thing to do be to leave the existing network alone while setting up a new mini network consisting of the new DC and SQL server. Then once I'm happy that the new network is working ok, swap the old PDC/SQL server over for the new one (can I leave the old Exchange 5.5 server in place for now? How will that work with the new AD domain?)

Then when time allows just replace the Exchange 5.5 with 2003
 
There's a few ways to attack this IMHO.

1) Build a new network with the new servers and use ADMT to manually migrate users, groups, computers etc to the new servers. Needs some thought on migrating the contents of the Exchange mailboxes - you could use something like ExMerge.

2) Migrate the existing NT based domain. If you have new hardware for your DC / file server, it would go something like this (IIRC):

  • Install NT4 on new server as BDC in existing domain (availability of drivers is key!)
  • Promote new NT4 install to PDC
  • Upgrade promoted server to Windows 2003 (you have to upgrade the PDC first)

At this point you can upgrade BDCs, but if they are being retired it's probably not worth it. You can now drop in the new SQL & Exchange servers. If you add the new Exchange Server into the same Exchange site as the existing server, it's a relatively simple task to move mailboxes and public folders onto the new server.

If you want to have a backup in case the second option goes wrong, then build a spare NT4 server. Make it a BDC and once it's replicated with PDC, turn it off. Then if things go Pete Tong, you can fire it up, promote it to PDC and be back where you started.
 
I did this last year or was it year before.
Went from NT4 & Ex5.5 to Windows 2003 AD and Ex 2003.
Here's how i did it.

Migrate from NT4 to Windows 2003.
Put a new PDC online, upgraded that to Windows 2003 and created domain that way, kept all users in place etc etc.
Did a lot of planning for it though, since we use Bind for DNS and i didnt want AD hitting the bind DNS.
I was doing on average 2 to 3 trial upgrades a day from NT4 to Win2k3, just so i could iron any problems out, end result was it took me 4 hours one saturday morning to do the migration and users never noticed any change.

For the Ex5.5 to Ex 2003, put a new server in place, installed Ex2003 as a member of the Ex5.5 site.
Transfered all user mailboxes to Ex2003 server, moved all public folders and every thing else to new server.
Shutdown the 5.5 server and removed from site.
There is a very good step through on the Ex2003 install on doing an upgrade from 5.5 to 2003. I followed that and had no problems.

One thing to remember when you do go to Win2k3, make sure all the pc's are synched time wise.

Robb
 
Shoei said:
I was doing on average 2 to 3 trial upgrades a day from NT4 to Win2k3, just so i could iron any problems out, end result was it took me 4 hours one saturday morning to do the migration and users never noticed any change.
Click to expand...

I think this is the way I'll approach it too. I've got new hardware and the software ready so I'll do some testing off network and just come in over a weekend to do it for real. I'm not bothered about losing the user, groups and mailboxes etc. as I'd like to take this opportunity to start afresh (some users are hogging far too much space).

Thanks for the pointers, wish me luck!
 
eidolon said:
I think this is the way I'll approach it too. I've got new hardware and the software ready so I'll do some testing off network and just come in over a weekend to do it for real. I'm not bothered about losing the user, groups and mailboxes etc. as I'd like to take this opportunity to start afresh (some users are hogging far too much space).

Thanks for the pointers, wish me luck!
Click to expand...

Do as many trials as you can, its the best way. When i was planning my upgrade, every one said practice, practice and more practice.
The last few weeks before i did the roll out, think i did around 30-40 trial runs. Dont know how many i did in total over the 12 months run up to the upgrade. But i didnt spend the whole 12 months on it. ;)

Ex2K3 was a doddle compared to the domain upgrade.

Robb
 
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