Project Coconut Entries:

Getting The Environment Up To Scratch

Project Coconut is underway and the first bit of action is getting the environment up to the pre-requisites for Exchange Server 2007. The existing environment is Active Directory in Windows 2000 Native Mode, with Windows 2000 Server domain controllers, and an Exchange 2000 Server organisation also running on Windows 2000 Server member servers.

While there are many Active Directory Sites in this environment there are only two that are relevant to the Exchange Server 2007 deployment – the HQ site, and the DR site. These are two well-connected locations with unique subnets, which rules out clustering the planned Windows Server 2003 hosts, but with Exchange Server 2007 SP1 allows us to implement site resiliency through Standby Continuous Replication (SCR).

Lets start by taking a look at the Active Directory requirements of Exchange Server 2007.

Exchange Server 2007 Active Directory Requirements

The full detail is available here, but I have summarised the requirements as follows:

Component Requirement

Schema Master

The minimum operating system of Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1, or Windows Server 2003 R2.

Global Catalog

Each Active Directory site where an Exchange Server 2007 server will be deployed must have at least one writable Global Catalog server.

The minimum operating system of Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1, or Windows Server 2003 R2.

Domain Controller

Each Active Directory domain and each Active Directory site where an Exchange Server 2007 server will be deployed must have at least one domain controller that has a minimum operating system of Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1, or Windows Server 2003 R2.

Domain Functional Level

Each Active Directory domain where an Exchange Server 2007 server or Exchange Server 2007 recipients will be located must be at least Windows 2000 Server Native Mode.

Forest Functional Level

Each Active Directory forest where an Exchange Server 2007 server or Exchange Server 2007 recipients will be located must be at least Windows 2000 Server Native Mode.

If you intend to use any of these features:

  • Cross-forest delegation

  • Ability for a user to select the free/busy information that will be available to a user in another forest;

the forest functional level must be Windows Server 2003.

Forest Trusts

If you intend to use any of these features:

  • Cross-forest delegation;

  • Ability for a user to select the free/busy information that will be available to a user in another forest;

you must have a trust established between the forests.

DNS

DNS must be correctly configured in the Active Directory forest.

Disjoint Namespace

If the DNS suffix of the Exchange server does not match the DNS name of the domain of which it is a member, then the DNS Search Suffix list must be populated with all of the DNS namespaces that are deployed within the organisation.

Read-Only Domain Controllers, and Read-Only Global Catalog Servers

Windows Server 2008 introduces the concept of Read-Only Domain Controllers and Global Catalog Servers. Exchange Server 2007 requires at least one writeable Domain Controller and at least one writeable Global Catalog Server in each Active Directory Site where an Exchange Server 2007 server is installed.

As you can see the environment does not meet the pre-requisites for Active Directory. Although DNS is properly configured and the Domain and Forest functional levels are correct, the Windows 2000 Server Domain Controllers will not support Exchange Server 2007.

To meet the pre-requisites will require at least one Domain Controller in each of the HQ and DR sites to be built or upgraded to Windows Server 2003 SP1 or later. By building a server in each site, promoting it to a Domain Controller, setting them each as Global Catalogs, and moving the Schema Master FSMO role to the new DC at HQ, the Active Directory pre-requisites will be met.

The decision was made to deploy new, virtualised Domain Controllers at the DR site, and upgrade the existing Domain Controllers at the HQ site. But before either of these tasks is performed the Active Directory Schema must be updated for Windows Server 2003. This is not a trivial undertaking, and as such you should review the following comprehensive guidance from Microsoft:

How to upgrade Windows 2000 domain controllers to Windows Server 2003

If you do not follow this guidance there are a lot of different issues you can run into such as incompatible SMB clients, and mangled Exchange attributes. Be sure to read the article above, and also this article that specifically deals with the Exchange attributes issue.

Windows Server 2003 adprep /forestprep command causes mangled attributes in Windows 2000 forests that contain Exchange 2000 servers

Once the Schema has been successfully extended you can install or upgrade your Domain Controllers to Windows Server 2003. In this case I am installing Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition. Because the R2 discs did not have Service Pack 2 included I first slipstreamed SP2 into them. This speeds up the deployment process because you don’t have to waste time installing the Service Pack after the server is up and running.

Microsoft’s guidance linked above on upgrading Domain Controllers is worth following, but what they don’t seem to mention is that you obviously should have on hand the latest Windows Server 2003 compatible drivers for your server hardware, particularly for important components such as the RAID card and the network adapters. Its no fun to see a BSOD or find your DC unable to connect to the network on first boot.

With the Active Directory pre-requisites out of the way it is time to look at the Exchange Organisation pre-requisites.

Exchange Server 2007 Existing Exchange Organisation Requirements

The pre-requisites for an upgrading an existing Exchange organisation to Exchange Server 2007 are as follows:

Component Requirement

Legacy Servers

There must be no servers in the Exchange organisation running versions prior to Exchange 2000 Server.

Organisation Mode

The Exchange organisation must be in Native Mode.

After all of the fun with Active Directory it is nice to see that for Project Coconut the organisation pre-requisites are already met. The Exchange environment is already consolidated into a single Exchange 2000 Server. Other than auditing the environment to plan the configuration of Exchange Server 2007 there is no preparation work required here.

Next on Project Coconut I’ll be discussing how I sized the hardware for the new Exchange Server 2007 hosts.

About the Author

Paul Cunningham

Paul is a former Microsoft MVP for Office Apps and Services. He works as a consultant, writer, and trainer specializing in Office 365 and Exchange Server. Paul no longer writes for Practical365.com.

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