AD design advice

[Guest]

Current setup consist of multiple NT domains in different geographical sites
trusting each other and with Exchange 5.5 in each domains. Want to upgrade to
Windows 2000 AD and Exchange 2000. On IT team responsible for all domains.
Can I setup just one AD domain (like abc.com) but with multiple Exchange
Servers each with using different domain name (like c1.abc.com, c2.abc.com)?
Sites are like through site VPN.

And how best to do the upgrade without interruption to Exchange 5.5
services? Thanks for your advice.

 

[Paul Bergson]

Well you can only have a single Exchange 2003 organization within a forest.
You can't upgrade Exchange 5.5 to 2003, you have to bring up a 2003 Exchange
server, have an AD Connector and transfer mailboxes (Called an in place
upgrade).

You have a lot of work ahead of you.

http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb;en-us;822942&spid=1773&sid=312

http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Migrating_Exchange_5_5_to_2003.html



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Paul Bergson MCT, MCSE, MCSA, CNE, CNA, CCA

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Jorge_de_Almeida_Pinto]

Current setup consist of multiple NT domains in different
geographical sites
trusting each other and with Exchange 5.5 in each domains.
Want to upgrade to
Windows 2000 AD and Exchange 2000. On IT team responsible for
all domains.
Can I setup just one AD domain (like abc.com) but with
multiple Exchange
Servers each with using different domain name (like
c1.abc.com, c2.abc.com)?
Sites are like through site VPN.

And how best to do the upgrade without interruption to
Exchange 5.5
services? Thanks for your advice.

assuming you are talking about multiple NT domains with 1 exchange
org. If tyour team is responsible for all NT domains and it will be in
the future I think you would best migratie to a single forest single
domain model with an exch 2003 org.

the highlights:
Inventory your environment as needed
Design AD environment
Setup AD DCs
migrate accounts, groups etc
switch to using AD accounts instead of NT4 accounts
migrate clients
Setup ADC
Setup exchange 2003 srvs
move mailboxes
migrate NT4 resources
cleanup