Exchange 2007 Server Installation Guide Updates

Found another SCW related issue. I've tried to apply SCW including Mailbox Cluster rules on both nodes multiple times, but although there is an Inbound rule in the Windows filtering platform (firewall) for "Microsoft Exchange - System Attendent (In)" ~ mad.exe, it does not seem to work. The result is that Outlook Anywhere does not work because connections from RPC Proxy on source port 6004 are being blocked and you can find that in the Security Log of the CMS.
I had to manually add another Inbound rule for ..binmad.exe with the exact same parameters as SCW applied and then it worked like a charm. It's weird because i could not find any differences between the default and the manually created rule...
It looks like the Exchange2007_WinSrv2008.xml template is not really processed correctly while applying SCW for some occult reason.
Wanted to share that out, not sure if anyone else ran into this before. Probably :)

Hi Ross,

Great Guide! I found 2 things that might help others and can be added to guidance perhaps:

1. Server hardening: SCW template to load for Exchange should be "Exchange2007_WinSrv2008.xml" and Exchange2007Edge_WinSrv2008.xml". This doesn't come clear from the online documentation (linked through from the main guide)
2. So, if you want to keep your Advanced Firewall running and apply SCW, there is a manual change you have to make for the "..BinMicrosoft.Exchange.ClusterReplayService.exe" program, because inbound connections are blocked! You have to add it as an Inbound Rule and add it as a Program and allow connections on Domain,Private and Public network profiles. Symptoms and problems that you get when you don't:
- Get-StorageGroupCopyStatus reports ServiceDown or other errors.
- Test-ReplicationHealth takes a really long time to complete and reports an error on SGCopyStatus.
- So Continuous Replication is is failed state.
- Cluster nodes get slumpy.

Cheers,
Nik

Hello!
I wonder if someone knows some base knowledge about the migration of Oracle Collaboration for Exchange Server 2007

Ross, don't you need to configure a static route for the the private network?  How would it be able to route to the other CCR node's private NIC otherwise?

Thanks Ross - I'm going to run it in a lab and see what happens. You've certainly answered one of my main queries, which was can we have the 2007 servers built into the 2003 organisation before doing the 5.5 migration?

Being able to build the 2007 environment up before the migration should really improve our ability to test routing and ILM etc. as well as cut down risk and time on the migration weekend. Thanks for your help and advice.

Hi James,

Yes the ApplyMandatoryProperties should fix all the attributes. However, as you probably saw we don't support using any legacy mailbox move tool to move mailboxes to Exchange 2007.  So ultimately, the solution you are using is an untested process.  There may be unknown issues, then again there may not be any issues.  If you do feel that something is weird, please open a support case.

Ross

Ed W:"Has anyone actually taken these documents and set down and installed a CCR with 2 CAS/HUB servers from it?"

That's exactly what we're aiming to do here - I'll let you know how it goes.

Ross, all the info I can find on that cmdlet indicates that it "fixes" the problems that arise in doing a 2007 mailbox creation/operation with 2003 tools, by modifying the ExchangeVersion, RecipientTypeDetails, and RecipientDisplayType.

Are there any other issues that are not covered here, and if the cmdlet fixes these, what would be the reason for *not* using 2003mailmig to jump to 2007 and thus save having to do the migration "twice" on our target implementation weekend?

Regards,

James

Hi Ed,

For customers looking for an enterprise deployment methodology they can leverage my good buddy Robert's installation scripts -

http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2008/09/03/449731.aspx.

The purpose of the "Configuration DVD" is to have a standard repository for scripts and hot-fixes that are used throughout the installation guides.  Does it need to be a DVD?  No, it could be a share on a file server.  Like I said, it simply houses hot-fixes/rollups/configuration

scripts.  

With regards to hot-fixes and using Windows Update, that would be viable if a) all hot-fixes are available on Windows Update and b) all customers use Windows Update (many do not have their servers talking directly to Windows Update servers).

As far as your statement "Items such as the creation of a D drive for the Exchange binaries and moving the DVD drive to the Z drive. (And in following the different steps, it looks like this isn't consistent)" - I went through each installation guide to verify

that all guides list a Z drive and all guides list a D drive and the standalone server role guides provide an example of where to install the Exchange binaries (d:exchsrvr), so I question the validity of your statement.  If you have actionable feedback, please

send it.

And yes all of these installation guides were validated by actually installing servers.

Ross

James,

When using mailmig you should move hte mailboxes from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2003 then to Exchange 2007 using the native cmdlets.

If you don't do that and leverage mailmig to create the mailboxes directly on Exchange 2007 stores, then you will need to run the following cmdlet to update the mailbox version (otherwise certain features will be unavailable):

set-mailbox <alias> -ApplyMandatoryProperties

Ross

I just took some time going through the guides and while they look like they might be good "installation procedures for environments with a large number of Exchange Servers" they don't look to address the mass number of installations that people will be doing.
First, there's this concept of the Configuration DVD. If I'm not mistaken, I have to create this from a large number of TechNet articles and make sure that it does something that really isn't well documented.
Next, the installation process goes through a number of what I'd call dubious steps (more like personal preference) for configuring the server. Items such as the creation of a D drive for the Exchange binaries and moving the DVD drive to the Z drive. (And in following the different steps, it looks like this isn't consistent).
Now it starts to talk about Hotfix application. But instead of using Windows Update, everything seems to be loaded by hand. Why not use Windows Update? Are there any updates that Windows Update doesn't load?
When it gets down to the application installation, there's like one line "Install the server"
Once the server is installed, the first thing that it does is to rename the Storage Groups and the Databases. If this is to be considered Best Practice, then why doesn't it come installed this way?

Has anyone actually taken these documents and set down and installed a CCR with 2 CAS/HUB servers from it?

And while I guess the Configuration DVD did this for me somewhere, the KB article that tells me what prerequisites to install on W2K8 seems to be infinitely more usable than these guides for installations of less than 6 servers.