Exchange 2003-Exchange 2007 OAB - Royal?

flames1000

He all,

Are transition is 25% done. I have a quick question. The offline address book is still showing on the 03 server as the default through the EMS on the 07 server. We moved 1 databse from 03 to 07 and all is good.

I have the 03 public folders replicating to the 07 server with no issues, im looking around to find any best practices as to when i can move the OAB from 03 to 07. I figure i could just move that and not create another.

What i want to do is if possible, move it to 07 and still have the rest of the 03 people download it there.

thought?

flames1000

royal

Depends. How are you replicating public folders? Did you add a replicate to the 2007 server or did you remove the 2003 replica and change it to the 2007 server. If you removed the 2003 server and modified the replica list to only contain the 2007 server, then I'd move generation to 2007. If you have both servers as replicas, then doesn't matter too much. I have read that if you are doing long-term co-existence, to move generation to 2007. I can't think of any reasons why though. I've tried for hours to find that document that stated that as I didn't bookmark it, but couldn't find it.

There are some decisions here:
1. If you are replacing the replica and know that all data can be transferred in a matter of a couple days, replace replica on Friday and move generation to 2007. There "might" be some downtime with clients not being able to get the OAB correctly and public folder referrals not working 100%. Hence why you do this Friday @ 5pm if nobody really works Saturday/Sunday.
2. If there's a ton of public folder data, what I would do, is add the 2007 as a replica instead of replacing the replica. I would then leave generation alone till move people are on 2007. Once you know the OAB has replicated fully, I would move OAB generation to 2007. Eventually, when everyone is on 2007, remove 2003 from replica list.

Make sure that you create the public folder container through system manager for the administrative group on 2007 and drag and drop the public folder hierarchy from the 2003 administrative group to the 2007 administrative group. If you don't do this, your public folder store might not mount on 2007 once 2003 is removed.

The directions Microsoft gives doesn't tell you to do this before or after the public folder store is deleted, but in their directions, deleting the public folder store is before the drag and drop. I get nervous about doing it in that order so I did the drag and drop before deleting the store on 2003.

Hope that helps.

flames1000

Hey Royal,

Okay this is what i have going on...

The 07 server has the public folder DB added when the server was first setup and i can see if in the 03 ESM. There was nothing in it. I went to the 03 server and set the replication for all the folders that we wanted to be transferred over to the 07 server by setting the replicate folders option, the information has been replicating well ever since, we have been in slow mode with this, so the replication has been going for a month or so.

On the 03 server now when i go to the public folder db, i see the schedule+ free busy folder says data unavailable and OAB is at 0. We have a couple Outlook 2007 clients, but the rest are 03, so im a little worried about that.

We do not have a bunch of info that i have to worry about as far as replication goes, so that is covered. Im just wondering if that the way the 07 public folders are right now if db will not mount after i take out the replication schedule on the 03 server after we decommision it?

Is it fine to move the oab to 07 right now and let it generate there, as the 03 clients should redirect to it correct?

I tell ya, they sure do not get into this stuff in the 70-284 exam

Hopefully im doing this right?

Flames1000

royal

If the oab is all replicated to the 07 server, then yes, you can move generation to the 07 server. It sounds like you removed the 03 replica from the public folder database and just added Exchange 2007 to the replica list since there's no data for OAB on the Exchange 2003 side.

Do all this before decommissioning last Exchange 2003 server:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb288905(EXCHG.80).aspx

Also, as long as the connectors between both Routing Groups that contain 03 and 07 allow referrals, mailboxes on both sides will still be able to access public folder content. The hierarchy is replicated to all public folder databases within the org, so every public folder database will know where the data is stores. If the connectors allow public folder referrals, when the user's mailbox requests public folder data, they'll hit their mailbox server, see it has a public folder database, and the database will refer that user to the closest public folder database that contains the data.

flames1000

Hey Royal,

No replicas are removed, on the 03 server for the public folders, they have the 03 server and the 07 server listed in the replication options.

Flames1000

royal

So I am going through this at my client right now. Couple days ago I started replicating public folder content by adding to the replica list instead of replacing. Both Exchange 2000 and 2007 are in sync right now and I moved the OAB generation to the Exchange 2007 server and enabled web distribution and set up all the Autodiscover Service URLs for -InternalURL and -ExternalURL for future Outlook 2007 clients.

Today I tested free/busy data by doing the following:
1. Creating 2 accounts on the Exchange 2000 side. Set Outlook to replicate calendar data to the Exchange 2003 server every 1 minute.
2. Logged onto the first account, created calendar item, waited 3 minutes.
3. Logged onto second account, created second calendar item, waited 3 minutes.
4. Started meeting invitation and added first account. Was able to see free/busy. Worked.
5. Logged on first account and set up meeting and checked free/busy of second account. Worked.
6. Migrated one account to Exchange 2007
7. Logged on 2003 mailbox and did the whole meeting invitation and was able to still see free/busy
8. Logged on 2007 mailbox and did the whole meeting invitation and was able to still see free/busy

Good, everything is working.

That's what made me move the OAB generation over. I could also take the 2003 database and set the default public folder database to the public folder database to the 2007 server, remove 2003 replica, wait for public folder instances to be gone, then remove public folder database.

Instead, I decided to leave sync going. We only have 100 users at this client (small client) so we're doing a full migration at once. I decided I'd let them all migrate, then remove 2003 from replica list, let public folder instances be gone, but not delete public folder database.

Instead, I'll let Exchange 2000 sit for a week to ensure clients can still hit it and have their profiles be redirected to 2007.

After about 4-5 days of that, I'll shut down Exchange 2000 for a few days, do some testing to ensure free/busy is still working, OAB, etc... If all is well for a few days, I'll bring Exchange 2000 back up, drag and drop the public folder tree over to the administrative group's public folder tree of Exchange 20007, delete the public folder database, and begin to uninstall Exchange 2000.

Hope that helps.