Moving from Exch 5.5 to 2000 with Unity 3.0.2

[emlee]

If I upgrade my current Unity 2.4.6 running on Windows 2000 and Exchange 5.5 to Unity 3.0.2, how difficult will it be to then migrate the connection from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2000? <br><br>We're looking at running our Exchange 2000 in a active/passive cluster, so it seems like I'll need Exchange 2000 on my Unity box as well.<br><br>Any suggestions or thoughts?<br><br>

[Anil Verma]

It would be possible to move from a 3.0 Ex 5.5 system to a Ex 2K system. This would involve running the configuration setup ( aka the setup part 2 ) again and this time running it for Exchange 2K.

The hard part would be removing the Exchange 5.5 install on your system. If you are in a pure 2K or a mixed mode Exchange environment, you need to have the Unity talking to Ex 2K.

Here is what I can suggest -
1) Setup Exchange 2K in your environment. I assume this is a huge box running the cluster setup.
2) Put a new Unity 3.0 system into the environment. Setup this Unity to talk to the E2K cluster.
3) Setup the Active Directory Connector on all of the Ex 5.5 systems. Remember to set it up as a one way ADC or else the 2.4.6 system will get trashed.
4) Export all the subscribers out of the Unity 2.4.6 system. Uninstall the Unity 2.4.6 system. Import all subscribers into the 3.0 system.
5) Start the move process of moving folks from the Ex 5.5 servers to the Exchange 2K server.

This can get complicated especailly if you are working with more than one domain etc. So if possible, try this out in a lab before you install on the customer site.

Anil Verma
Cisco Systems
anilve@cisco.com

[#3]

I will be doing the same thing - moving from 5.5 to E2K. I am using the swing method with about 1/2 of the mailboxes on the E2K machine and the other half on the 5.5 machine for 1-2 days.

How can I make sure everyone get voice mail to their outlook box?

What issues do I need to look out for?

I am currently running Unity 3 (just upgraded a couple of weeks ago from 2.4.6) in an all windows 2000 environment except E2K.

[Anil Verma]

If you are going to be using a mixed mode environment of both Exchange 5.5 and Exchange 2K, Unity has to be attched to the Active Directory. You will need to have chosen the Exchange 2K as the message store in the consifuration setup peice of Unity setup.

This means that Exchange 5.5 should not be on the Unity box. When you do this, you can have Unity access all the Exchange 2K mailboxes.

On the Exchange 5.5 server, you will need to install the Active Directory Connector. Once the replication is setup and working, and you can verify that by using Outlook etc, then you can start having these Exchange 5.5 boxes show up on Unity too.

Anil Verma
Cisco Systems
anilve@cisco.com