Need to confirm 2003 Native mode won't break my Exchange system

[Paul Landry]

Hi All,

I have a 2003 AD Domain currenting running in Windows 2000 mixed mode.
The only DC's in this domain are Windows 2003 servers.

I have a Windows NT 4 Domain with external trusts set up with the 2003
Domain.

I have an Exchange 2003 server in the 2003 Domain hooked up to an Exchange
5.5 organizaton in the NT 4 Domain.
We are in the process of migrating mailboxes from the 5.5 server to the 2003
server.
Users login into the 2003 exchange server with their NT 4 domain accounts.

If I switch the AD to 2003 native, am I going to break the exchange logins?
I need 2003 to use the AD Migration Tool to start bringing users into the
AD.

All users are either 2000 Pro SP4 or XP Pro SP2 clients.

Based on what I've read, I don't think switching modes will cause any
problems, I just want to make on last check before I do this.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.


Paul Landry

 

[Tomasz Onyszko]

Paul Landry wrote:
(...)

Based on what I've read, I don't think switching modes will cause any
problems, I just want to make on last check before I do this.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

No, it should not break Your environment.

 

[Paul Landry]

Thanks Tomasz.
It's always good to double-check this kind of stuff.

Paul

 

[Joe Richards [MVP]]

But test in your lab!

As Tomasz indicates this should be fine. The issues with the RUS and ADC in
Exchange 2000 in a K3 Forest Functional mode domain were corrected in Exchange 2003.

But again, always test one changes like this in your lab with your lob apps so
you have a good feeling yourself. You could have 3000 people in the newsgroups
tell you it is fine and some odd aspect of your environment causes some odd
problem. If you ask MS, they will almost never give you a "you will be perfectly
fine", they will say, you should be fine, there are no known issues, but test.

joe

 

[Tomasz Onyszko]

But test in your lab!

As Tomasz indicates this should be fine. The issues with the RUS and ADC
in Exchange 2000 in a K3 Forest Functional mode domain were corrected in
Exchange 2003.

But again, always test one changes like this in your lab with your lob
apps so you have a good feeling yourself. You could have 3000 people in
the newsgroups tell you it is fine and some odd aspect of your
environment causes some odd problem. If you ask MS, they will almost
never give you a "you will be perfectly fine", they will say, you should
be fine, there are no known issues, but test.

That's why I said "it should not break" - wise words joe, it's always
good to do some testing and good backup before making changes.

 

[Paul Landry]

If I shut down my second AD DC, then do a system state backup of my first AD
DC, could I restore this backup to get back to the previous domain level if
something goes wrong?

Currently the only AD integrated app is Exchange.
All other LOB apps live in the NT 4 Domain.

The AD domain is empty except for Exchange.

Paul

 

[Joe Richards [MVP]]

I am assuming that you have 2 DCs?

If you do, your plan assumes that all of your problems will filter up prior to
turning the second DC back on. But if that is ok for you, you don't even need to
do the restore. Just take the bad DC off the network and demote it, start up the
good DC and clean up the metadata, repromote the bad DC.

Again, you should be perfectly safe. But there are no guarantees, that is why
you want to verify in a test lab.

--
Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
www.joeware.net

If I shut down my second AD DC, then do a system state backup of my first AD
DC, could I restore this backup to get back to the previous domain level if
something goes wrong?

Currently the only AD integrated app is Exchange.
All other LOB apps live in the NT 4 Domain.

The AD domain is empty except for Exchange.

Paul

 

[Paul Landry]

Thanks Joe.
I'll give it a shot in a lab environment to verify.

Paul

I am assuming that you have 2 DCs?

If you do, your plan assumes that all of your problems will filter up
prior to turning the second DC back on. But if that is ok for you, you
don't even need to do the restore. Just take the bad DC off the network
and demote it, start up the good DC and clean up the metadata, repromote
the bad DC.

Again, you should be perfectly safe. But there are no guarantees, that is
why you want to verify in a test lab.