Announcing the Release of the Exchange Server 2010 Deployment Assistant
Published Nov 11 2009 01:34 PM 3,510 Views

We heard concerns from our early adoption Exchange Server 2010 customers regarding transitioning from Exchange Server 2003 and/or Exchange Server 2007 in a few key areas. One of which is the fact that you, Exchange/IT administrators, are burdened with complex migration steps (multiple firewall rules, multiple certificates, multiple external URLs/ports for clients). This complexity means there is opportunity for misconfiguration, which causes deployments to stall-not to mention a lot of frustration.

Based on this feedback and our desire to help streamline the deployment experience, we created Exchange Server 2010 Deployment Assistant which can be accessed at http://technet.microsoft.com/exdeploy2010

It allows you to create Exchange 2010 on-premises deployment instructions that are customized to your environment. The Assistant asks a small set of questions, and based on a your answers, it provides a finite set of instructions that are designed to get you up and running on Exchange 2010.  The idea is that, instead of wading through the 2000+ topics in the Exchange 2010 library, you can answer a few simple questions, and the Assistant gives you just enough customized content to do the upgrade.

More content is coming:
In this version of the Deployment Assistant, content is available for customers upgrading from Exchange 2003. Additional upgrade scenarios will be available in early 2010 (upgrading from Exchange Server 2007, or a mixed Exchange Server 2003/2007 environment for example). We will also work on the integration of cross-premise scenarios.

Here is a screenshot from the Assistant, after the initial set of questions were answered and instructions generated.

We would love your feedback. Prior to this launch, feedback from Exchange subject matter experts and a group of our Microsoft field consultants and engineers who work with you every day was incorporated.  Feel free to leave a comment here, or send an email to edafdbk AT microsoft DOT com via the 'Feedback' link located in the header of every page of the Deployment Assistant. Also, please send us your 'success stories' after using this tool... we'd love to hear about them!

-Katie Kivett
Microsoft Exchange Deployment Assistant PM

17 Comments
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This is fantastic. Now a similar tool for designing RBAC roles and groups would be helpful.
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Oh Thank YOU!!!!  ...After just completing the transition from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007, it was amazing to see how many things needed to be addressed before the project could be considered "complete".  ISA, Exchange, AD, DNS, SSL, etc.  I have a huge MS OneNote Notebook with as-built modifications to prove it.  

I took a quick look under the E2007 to E2010, and that is not complete yet, so I cannot comment on anything other than please build off of this concept, and don't let the tool go stale.  
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Oh wow. I was just reading through the Technet Library, have been for the last few days. This will be a huge help.
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Great, we are glad that the Assistant looks promising for you. Please keep us posted on your experience. and sketchy00, we are definately planning on releasing content for the 2007 scenario, that is our next priority.
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I'm already hoping to deploy 2010 in Q1 2010, so this will definitely help me out! :)
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Russian version of this post is here:
на русском - здесь: http://www.maximumexchange.ru/2009/11/12/exchange-server-2010-deployment-assistant/
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This is brilliant. It is ideal for all us admins in small companies who have to be a "jack of all trades" and can never dedicate our entire working time to learning one product such as Exchange. I'd love to see Microsoft continue this type of help feature into other product area's such as Active Directory, SQL, SCCM, etc.
It could do with asking a few more questions to get the end steps even shorter/more relevant (like are you using external certificates) but that's probably just me being lazy.
Thanks a lot for this great tool though. It'll help my Q1 move to Exch2010 to no end!
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Fantastic Start! be nice to have configuration questions like "Do you plan to use the High Availability Feratures of Exchange 2010" that would lead to a DAG configuration document. Along with this some qualification questions such as "Do you plan to host all roles on all machines" with the load ballancing requirements or configuration that goes with that.
Again, really great start on this!
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This is great...this rocks...but I believe we should add publishing through ISA to the rest of the details.
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Thank you for the feedback, keep it coming! Regarding ISA, we are planning to incorporate content into the Deployment Assistant (as well as our core documentation) after the new version of ISA releases.
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Thank you for the feedback, keep it coming! Regarding ISA, we are planning to incorporate content into the Deployment Assistant (as well as our core documentation) after the new version of ISA releases.
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Can we have a non-Silverlight version please. It would be useful if we can access this without having to go to a machine with Silverlight just to access the guide.

Thanks.
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Getting an error loading the page that contains the deployment assitant. tried from different workstations. anybody else having the same issue?
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Hi Malcom, can you please send more information regarding the specific issue you are seeing to edaissue@microsoft.com?
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Matt P.-Exchange Deployment Assistant is currently dependent on Silverlight. There is not one guide, as the guide is customized based on a user's answers to a specific set of questions. For our information, what are your objections to Silverlight if you don't mind providing a little more detail?
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Hi Katie
sorted out think my ISA is preventing certain protocols, but connecting to internet thru 3G and can access the site now.
Was actually looking for the EDA for New installation of Exchange 2010.

thanks though
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Malcom-I'm glad you were able to access the Deployment Assistant. Look for content for the new Exchange 2010 install early next year. I will publish a new blog post when it is available, we are working hard to make it available as soon as possible!
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