question

GustavoRodrigo avatar image
0 Votes"
GustavoRodrigo asked GustavoRodrigo commented

Exchange migration from 2010 to 2016 (between two AD Sites)

Hi Everyone,

My scenario:

Datacenter #1 - AD Site "A"
-4 ISP internet connections. (Outbound independently)
-2 DCs GC (FSMO) Internal DNS
-2 DNS Servers - External DNS hosted into a DMZ (SPF / MX / PTR records pointing to Site A (mailflow))
-1 Exchange 2010 SP3 UR30.
-2 Exchange EDGE Servers in DMZ.
-500 users


DNS Namespace: Outbounded model
Mail services (DNS): webmail.company.com / autodiscover.company.com
MX´s: 2 mail.company.com | 2 mail2.company.com (2 on 1 ISP and 2 on another ISP for redundancy)

Datacenter #2 - AD Site "B"
-2 ISP Internet connections (Outbound independently)
-2 DCs GC
-Plan to install 1 Exchange 2016 (Not yet installed, Without Exchnage Server)

Connections: 1 VPN and 1 MPLS connecting Site A to Site B.


I need to install Exchange 2016 as part of an Exchange Upgrade, and i need to install it directly on Site B because it has more hardware resources and more employee´s.

Questions :

1 - Can i install Exchange 2016 directly in Site B without migrate any user mailbox and while Exchange 2010 SP3 still reside in a main site A without changing, afecting or disrupting mail flow or needed to pointing the DNS records to Site B ? > ignoring the fact of the previous and immediate Schema/Ad/Domain updates from remote share in FSMO DC, and configuration of the SCP, the services and the SSL certificate.>

2 - What´s happens to the actual mail flow, regarding on that exchange 2010 cannot do proxy up to exchange 2016 ?

I need to change all my DNS records (SPF / MX / ISP´s PTR records) to point to the second datacenter in Site B (Exchange 2016) for dont break mail flow, even though no mailboxes have yet been migrated ?

3 - If Question 1 not apply, When we are ready to migrate the mailboxes, this DNS changes needs to be done before or in parallel while mailbox is moved from Site A (Exch.2010) to Site B (Exch.2016) ?

4 - If i´m wrong, i need to firstly install Exchange 2016 directly in Site A where Exchange 2010 reside and change the firewall port rule to point to Exchange 2016 ?

Any additional comments about my inquiries or the steps necessary to not cause any interruption are welcome.

Thanks.








office-exchange-online-itprooffice-exchange-server-mailflowoffice-exchange-server-connectivityoffice-exchange-server-deployment
5 |1600 characters needed characters left characters exceeded

Up to 10 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 3.0 MiB each and 30.0 MiB total.

1 Answer

ZhengqiLou-MSFT avatar image
0 Votes"
ZhengqiLou-MSFT answered GustavoRodrigo commented

Hi @GustavoRodrigo ,

Did you create mailboxes for the 100 users in Site B?

All these based on the mailboxes of site A and site B are all in Exchange 2010 database.

Can i install Exchange 2016 directly in Site B without migrate any user mailbox and while Exchange 2010 SP3 still reside in a main site A without changing, afecting or disrupting mail flow or needed to pointing the DNS records to Site B ?

Yes you could do that. If you don't change the DNS records to Site B and create a send connector for Internet mail flow on Exchange 2016, the Exchange 2010 will remain as the message receiver and sender.

What´s happens to the actual mail flow, regarding on that exchange 2010 cannot do proxy up to exchange 2016 ?

I'm not sure if I fully understand your question, but I think the mail flow won't change.

If Question 1 not apply, When we are ready to migrate the mailboxes, this DNS changes needs to be done before or in parallel while mailbox is moved from Site A (Exch.2010) to Site B (Exch.2016) ?

You could do it before and after you want to migrate these mailboxes. Because the mail flow will be stopped when migrating, you just need to be sure that the DNS records have been changed to 2016 when the mail flow is to be recovered.

Here is a similar thread you could refer to, he just create a lower priority MX record for the second server to keep the mail flow: https://serverfault.com/questions/752926/migrate-to-new-exchange-2010-server-in-different-ad-site
Please Note: Since the web site is not hosted by Microsoft, the link may change without notice. Microsoft does not guarantee the accuracy of this information.

And kindly suggest you could migrate a pilot mailbox to test the process.

Best regards,
Lou


If the response is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.
Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

· 4
5 |1600 characters needed characters left characters exceeded

Up to 10 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 3.0 MiB each and 30.0 MiB total.

@ZhengqiLou-MSFT, Thank you very much for your answer.

There is only one Exchange 2010 SP3 with 2 EDGE in the organization and at Site A.
There is no Exchange 2016 yet installed at Site B.

I understand what you have sent me in the ServerFault article, but in my case it is a version upgrade and in addition to that, I have ActiveSync clients that depend on Site A and in addition to OWA that in this case they will not be able to perform the redirection proxy towards Site B, because Exchange 2010 cannot perform that task towards an Exchange 2016. So I think it is more complex than just creating a new MX with another priority, since it is not only about maintaining the flow of mail, also I have this problem and in addition, two EDGE servers connected to Exchange 2010 in Site A in DMZ, what about it?

I await your comments.

1 Vote 1 ·

Hello @GustavoRodrigo ,

Thank you for sharing these information.

So our final destination is to move all these mailboxes to Exchange 2016 and also the mail flow, right?

As for your concern, before you moved the mail flow to the new server, Edge is still used by Exchange 2010. So you don't have to worry about this.

You could follow the guidance of Deployment wizard: https://assistants.microsoft.com/

Best regards,
Lou


If the response is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.
Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

1 Vote 1 ·

Thanks Lou.

Apparently it is as you indicate. External mail flow from exchange 2016 should use EDGE servers subscribed to exchange 2010 server at Site A and internal mail flow should work natively between sites. Currently I am not being able to check any of these scenarios because the company has two Cisco ASAs, and in site B we still have to solve the problem it has with the MailGuard feature, since I realized because if I telnet to exchnage 2010 and neighboring , the answer is "220 ***" both ways. After we solve this question, I can confirm 100% that installing Exchange 2016 in site B and with the same namespace (and the identical configuration to exchange 2010) is correct and everything works correctly, thus being able to migrate the mailboxes progressively and without interruptions. The internal connectivity tests through VPN regarding the connectivity with the outlook client and OOTW access (OWA) modifying both the windows host and the internal DNS, both were correct and Exchange 2016 was able to proxy the connections. It only remains for me to test the mail flow once I fix the Cisco ASA.

Thanks for everything!

1 Vote 1 ·

Hi @GustavoRodrigo ,

Do the suggestions above help? If the issue has been resolved, please click “Accept as answer” to mark the helpful reply as an answer, this will make answer searching in the forum easier and be beneficial to other community members as well.

If you are still stuck in this issue, please feel free to post your questions.

Regards,
Lou


If the response is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.
Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

0 Votes 0 ·