Project Coconut: Part 3 – Deploying the first Exchange Server 2007 server

Project Coconut entries:

• Project Coconut: Introduction
• Project Coconut: Part 1 – Getting the environment up to scratch
• Project Coconut: Part 2 – Sizing the Exchange Server 2007 servers
• Project Coconut: Part 3 – Deploying the first Exchange Server 2007 server
• Project Coconut: Part 4 – Configuring Standby Continuous Replication
• Project Coconut: Part 5 – Its mailbox migration time!
• Project Coconut: Part 6 – Finishing the job

Deploying the first Exchange Server 2007 server

In this post I’ll explain some of the tasks around deploying the first Exchange Server 2007 server into the existing Exchange organisation at the Project Coconut customer site.

To recap, so far I have:

• Upgraded domain controllers to meet the minimum requirements for Exchange Server 2007
• Sized the new Exchange server hardware for CPU, memory and storage requirements
• Extended the Active Directory Schema for Exchange Server 2007

With the environment ready it is time to prepare the Exchange server host for installation. For this project I am deploying a “Typical” Exchange server, meaning it is installed with the Client Access, Hub Transport, and Mailbox Server roles. The combined software pre-requisites for this are:

• Windows Server 2003 64-bit Edition (in this case R2 with Service Pack 2 slipstreamed into it beforehand) and the latest updates from Windows Update
• .NET 2.0 Service Pack 1
• MMC 3.0
• PowerShell
• IIS 6.0 with COM+ Access, WWW Publishing service, and ASP.NET 2.0 enabled. Important – do not install the SMTP or NNTP components of IIS
• DTC Service
• RPC over HTTP Proxy
• Hotfixes 904639 and 918190 if you did not install them via Windows Update.

I have not included any of the requirements for Unified Messaging as I will not be installing this server role, however you can read about them here. If you happen to be deploying your Exchange server on Windows Server 2008 you can install the pre-requisites by following these instructions.

Running Exchange Server 2007 Setup

Now it is time to run Exchange Server 2007 setup. Setup can be run in GUI mode but I like to fire it off from the command line and then go do something else, because frankly the Exchange install takes a while and is not that exciting to watch after the first few dozen times.

For a “Typical” Exchange server installation into an existing organisation you only need to specify the server roles you wish to install and the legacy server that will be used for routing between the old and new servers. For Project Coconut I’m also specifying a different install directory than the default.

Setup /mode:Install /roles:CA,HT,MB /LegacyRoutingServer:EXCH2000SERVER.domain.local
/TargetDir:"D:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server"

Providing there are no errors during install you will now have your first Exchange Server 2007 installed into the Exchange organisation.

After Installing Exchange Server 2007

Once the installation is complete you may wish to perform these tasks:

• Enter your Exchange Server 2007 product license key
• Create your Storage Groups and Mailbox Databases
• Install and test your anti-virus and backup agents
• Replicate your Public Folder hierarchy and content
• Familiarise yourself with the Exchange Server 2007 co-existence with legacy server guidance and some other potential co-existence issues
• Start your Exchange Server 2007 certification studies (if you haven’t already!)

In the next part of Project Coconut I’ll discuss how to deploy Standby Continuous Replication.