Are you ready for Exchange 12?

Although Exchange 2007 has a great feature, we need 64bit hardware like mentioned in this forum. In addition, we need whitepapers to know more about this new product. Keep the plate hot, we would like to move forward.

Sridhar VG,

If you have 32 bit version of Exchange 2007 Beta 1, then sure - you can do it. Even up to RTM, with later versions, 32 bit version can be installed on a 32 bit OS, yes. However do realize that 32 bit is not going to be supported in production and that you should not do any sort of performance / scalability testing on a 32 bit version as the 64 bit results will be significantly different.

Going through the links, I am getting confused. Can some clarify, If I can install E12 Beta 1 on a system Intel 32 bit system running Windows 2003.

canadamand,

Please check specifically two posts that will answer this question:

http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2005/11/18/414796.aspx

and

http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2006/03/13/421914.aspx

I will be buying new hardware for my exchange 2k3 servers in the fiscal year beginning July 1st. If 2k3 does not support 64bit how should I proceed.

Darn right we are ready for Exchange 2007!  50 Stores, 8K pages, and the ability to increase our mailboxes to where users don't complain that they have more space on MSN!  We budgeted for 5 new 64 bit servers, a second SPAM filter, and a SAN.  We have had numerous discussions with the server vendor, the SAN vendor, and the SAN vendor's former Microsoft Exchange Ranger on planning.  For those who are concerned about 64bit get used to it. We will be moving to virtualized servers anyway and ESX 3.0 will fit the bill with 64 bit compatibility.  If I had the machines, which aren't available until June 2006, I would already be running the Beta.

If anyone in the UK would like to trial a server for 2 months that can run 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Exchange, contact me at sun AT interfacesolutions DOT co DOT uk
I am setting up some trials for 64bit apps with Microsoft and Sun, and would appreciate any feedback on what you would like to see.

it'll be better when E12 also run on 32 bit version.

What about upgrading a cluster?  Can you add an x64/Exchange 2007 server to an existing 2003 cluster?  Otherwise it's going to be difficult to come up with another 1/2 TB of SAN storage just to migrate.

Tony - it's correct, but it's temporary. UM uses some codecs from third parties and we weren't able to get 64bit versions of those codecs in time for Beta 1. That has since been addressed in a later build. So if you are going to use x64 OS, you'll need two machines for now in order to test the CTP.