HELP (gasp!)
- From: "Sam French" <SFrench@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2005 08:26:28 -0700
Hi there.
I am about to migrate to Exchange 2003/Enterprise from Exchange 2000
(Vanilla). The reason for this is that I've inherited a legacy of really bad
network management (or criminal lack thereof) along with a mail store that
actually wrote itself out to the VERY LAST SECTOR of the 16GB limit [hard
drive's limit; not necessarily Exchange's.] "Recovery" has just completed,
I've actually created some breathing room but I want a mail server whose
installation I can stand behind, or at least take the blame for deservingly.
I've done most of my homework. And I've decided my users would really
consider it a hardship to lose the ability to reply to their (overstuffed,
unmanaged by quota limits, out of control) stored mail, so I'm limited in
terms of the upgrade methods available to me. Going forward, my users are
going to have quota limits and plenty of stern warnings when they approach
them but it's completely unfair of me to suddenly hand them such a strict
policy when nobody has ever said WORD #1 about INBOX and server-side message
management.
The more I've looked into the whole existing Exchange configuration (among
other things) the more skeletons fall out from behind every closet door.
It's getting REALLY SCARRY and my past experience and training tell me I
need to basically start fresh with a new Active Directory, a few standards
and a durable set of rules for creating objects within active directory.
HERE'S MY PROBLEM:
I was brought on to "fix things." They're paying me a king's ransom
(rightfully so, but...) and, after only a week, I really need to get busy
actually creating the solutions I believe they need. Realistically, I'm
still not sure I have the "big picture" and there are several 'botiquey'
anomalies I've been unable to identify (you know... things like resource
domains whose member boxes haven't responded to a PING command since I got
here, numerous accounting aliases, distribution lists with more entries than
there are "Goldsteins" in Florida.)
Because I'm new, I don't want to just "turn everything off and wait for the
phone to ring" because I don't know who I'm pissing off, where on the org.
chart those people live and I'm not sure they know how to find me to
complain about denials of service.
My plan is to set up the new AD forest, tweak it until I think we're good to
go and then...? What should I do? Can I basically push what's left of the
old structure down into a single domain with monitored or limited one-way
trusts pointed at it (but not from it) and eviscerate it after a month or
so?
I've exported object lists and indexed the "old forest" from just about
every viewpoint I can associate with a manager, circulated the lists around
the enterprise and there are still so many seemingly orphaned fruits on my
tree, so to speak. I know I can't delete items at the schema level, but...?
Should I just drag everything into lost and found?
Trust me, I'm trying to do my own homework here, as fast as I can. I'm under
a lot of pressure to come up to a nose-bleed speed on some technologies I'm
not yet thinking about in my sleep. A week from now, I'll be an A.D.
authority, but in the meantime if anyone could share some lessons learned,
esp. if they've been here before, I'm sure there's some dharma in it for
you.
Thanks.
--
Sam French
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
- Jewish Community Federation -
SFrench@xxxxxxxxx
.
- Follow-Ups:
- Re: HELP (gasp!)
- From: Mike Talon
- Re: HELP (gasp!)
- Prev by Date: Re: Scheduling Resources for meetings
- Next by Date: OWA hangs when account set to "change password at next logon"
- Previous by thread: Duplicate AD user/one mailbox
- Next by thread: Re: HELP (gasp!)
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
