Re: ADC Tool Step 3 - Resource Mailbox Wizard

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From: Charlotte Zinck [MSFT] (czinck_at_online.microsoft.com)
Date: 04/09/04 

Date: Fri, 9 Apr 2004 15:57:27 -0500

Rich,

Here is an article that talks about the tools in greater detail in case I
have missed anything.
812593 Exchange Server 2003 Deployment Tools Overview
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=812593

Onto the questions:

#1. Yep, that is the only thing that step 3 does.

#2. The resource mailboxes are still going to be replicated into the AD
once the ADC is configured and running. Let me explain: The actual mailbox
will still exist on Exchange 5.5 server, but there will be an object that
represents it in the AD. I think of the AD as Exchange 2K3's directory
(like dir.edb). An object that represents the resource mailbox has to exist
in AD so that Exchange 2K3 can access and replicate it with the content on
Exchange 5.5, and so the users that are on Exchange 2K3 can access those
resource mailboxes. With that said, there is a condition that email enabled
objects in the AD can only have a one to one ratio with user objects (can
only be "owned" by one AD user). So, even though your mailboxes will still
reside in Exchange 5.5, the mailbox object in AD will need to have that one
to one ratio.

Also remember that if you delete an object out of the AD that the associated
mailbox will automatically be delete from the Exchange 5.5 server!

Leaving the Exchange organization in a mixed mode (Exchange5.5 and Exchange
2K3) is okay for the interim, but is designed for migration and removing the
last Exchange 5.5 server will not allow you to move the organization into
Native mode and reap the benefits:
822446 Overview of the Differences Between Mixed Mode and Native Mode in
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=822446

#3. Think of the SRS database as an Exchange 5.5 representation of the
Exchange 2K3 database. This is the database that Exchange 5.5 uses for
replication. The SRS database is created as soon as you join the first
Exchange2K3 server to your organization so the servers are able to
replicate.

This article may help to clarify the migration process:
823601 Active Directory Connector Requirements and Implications Throughout
an
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=823601

#4. That is correct, you do not need a copy of all content on your test
server. Having a copy of the directory should be sufficient to do the
migration testing. If you were testing moving mailboxes and wanted to know
about the time allotments or performance then you would need to get a copy
of the content as well so it matched the production machine.

#5 Your users in the Exchange 5.5 environment will get stamped with
ADC-GLOBAL_NAMES so if the Exchange 2K3 is removed then the users will need
to be cleaned up. I would highly recommend you keep your test environment
separate especially if you are still in the planning stages.

319474 XADM: How to Remove the ADC Global Names Attribute from Exchange 5.5
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=319474

Hope this helps,
Charlotte Zinck [MSFT]
Microsoft Exchange Support

Please do not send e-mail directly to this alias. This alias is for
newsgroup purposes only.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

"Rich Roller" <rich_roller@*REMOVE-THIS*whitney.org> wrote in message
news:%23TITngZHEHA.2472@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> Charlotte,
>
> Thank you for your thoughtful reply!
>
> Here's some f/u questions:
>
> 1. Is it the case that Step 3 ONLY deals with NTDSNoMatch issues
> and that these are the only changes it makes? I'm guessing this
> but would love to confirm that.
>
> 2. In our case, the resource mailboxes which are owned by a common
> NT acct, are NOT planning to be moved to AD/Exch2k3, but rather
> will stay on NT/Exch55 and be backwardly accessible (we hope) via
> trusts, SIDhistory, ADC, CA's, etc. For this reason & others we
> don't want to change the shared NT acct setup. So in our
> scenario, are there major pitfalls to leaving the old resource
> setup as is, on the old domain?
>
> 3. You & someone else mentioned the SRS database. I'm not
> familiar with it... has to do w/ Site Replication? If we have a
> single org/site/server setup on both Exch55 and new Exch2k3 (we're
> planning an InterOrg migration) does SRS matter?
>
> 4. We're giving more thought to a test enviroment including Exch55
> test server, but we won't have a test box with enough diskspace
> for our IS... at best it could have a copy of our old Directory...
> is that what you were suggesting with that article?
>
> 5. If we DON'T make a test Exch55 server but we instead make ADC
> CA's from our *test* Exch2k3/AD domain to our *production* Exch55,
> what is the risk that making those CA's would mess up or
> compromise the integrity or reliability of our current production
> Exch55 directory?
>
> Thanks again,
>
> Rich
>
> "Charlotte Zinck [MSFT]" <czinck@online.microsoft.com> wrote in
> message news:ucADkAXHEHA.3748@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
> > Rich,
> >
> > Step 3 of the ADC tools is going to add NTDSNomatch to the
> > CustomAttribute10. So if your AutoAccept is also using this
> attribute then
> > you are going to have a conflict.
> >
> > Remember the reason that this is happening - the resource
> mailboxes in
> > Exchange 5.5 in most cases are not each associated with
> individual resource
> > users in the domain and when the resource mailboxes are moved to
> AD
> > duplicate accounts are created. The problem then is that the
> admin chooses
> > the wrong user to delete from the AD and inadvertently deletes
> the resource
> > mailbox in Exchange 5.5. Step 3 of the ADC prevents this from
> happening.
> >
> > Since you have a unique situation you may want to create
> resource users for
> > each resource mailbox and then associate them in the 5.5
> environment. If
> > this is done then step 3 of the ADC is run, sees that there are
> no resource
> > mailboxes associated with non-unique users, and nothing is
> written to
> > CustomAttribute10. You are manually doing what the wizard does
> when it is
> > run which is to disassociate duplicate resource mailboxes from
> one account.
> >
> > As for your intention on doing the test migration with the 5.5
> server still
> > in production. I think you will be okay as long and you know
> what steps you
> > are doing and how to reverse them. As you mentioned the ADMT
> simply copied
> > the accounts to the active directory retaining SID history so it
> didn't
> > modify anything on the Exchange 5.5 side, but once you get the
> SRS database
> > created then the Exchange 5.5 side "knows" about the new server
> and
> > replicates information with it. What I would rather see is that
> you have a
> > test 5.5 server, as well, in your test environment.
> >
> > Here is an article to create a recovery server for Exchange 5.5
> and you can
> > put in your test environment:
> > 177635 XADM: How to Set Up a Disaster Recovery Server for
> Dir.edb
> > http://support.microsoft.com/?id=177635
> >
> > Hope this helps,
> > Charlotte Zinck [MSFT]
> > Microsoft Exchange Support
> >
> > Please do not send e-mail directly to this alias. This alias is
> for
> > newsgroup purposes only.
> > This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers
> no rights.
> >
> > "Rich Roller" <rich@*REMOVE-THIS*r2c.com> wrote in message
> > news:%23no7riQHEHA.3564@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> > > Does anyone know exactly what ADC Tools' Step 3 - Resource
> Mailbox
> > > Wizard does, other than changing a mailbox's
> CustomAttribute10?
> > >
> > > I'm asking because I've seen it written that you MUST run this
> > > step at least once in order to properly complete the whole
> > > 55->2003 deployment process. And also it seems that you
> cannot
> > > run Step 4 - CA Wizard, unless you complete Step 3 first.
> > >
> > > We're contemplating running a test migration setup from our
> > > production Exch55 box to a test Exch2k3/WS3 box.
> > >
> > > But we're hesitating because of Step 3 which modifies some
> shared
> > > mailboxes, at least Attrib10. It turns out that our room
> > > scheduling (AutoAccept script) application depends on Attrib10
> so
> > > if it gets whacked we're not sure if we can just put it back
> > > manually?
> > >
> > > Also, I'm beginning to wonder if our idea of doing a test
> > > migration as mentioned is not a good idea because of our
> > > production Exch55 directory/store having to be modified as a
> > > result?
> > >
> > > When we did this analogous thing w/ ADMT for NT->AD accounts
> it
> > > worked very differently... it didn't make any changes to the
> > > source so we could do a lot of test migrations to a test
> domain
> > > and that was very helpful in our learning/testing.
> > >
> > > Any thoughts on any/all of the above would be much
> appreciated!
> > >
> > > -Rich
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
>
>

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