With the news that Exchange Server 2013 has reached RTM a lot of customers are now asking for guidance on upgrading their existing organizations to Exchange 2013.
Although all of the upgrade guidance is not publicly available yet, here is what we know so far.
Supported Co-Existence Scenarios for Exchange 2013
Exchange Server 2013 CU1 (not RTM) will support co-existence with the following versions:
- Exchange Server 2010 SP3
- Exchange Server 2007 SP3 + update rollup 10
Both Exchange 2010 Service Pack 3 and Exchange 2007 SP3 have been released, which just leaves the Exchange 2013 CU1 release for supported co-existence to be possible.
There will be no co-existence support for Exchange Server 2003. If you’re still running Exchange 2003 and are looking to upgrade to Exchange 2013 you’ll need to do an interim upgrade to Exchange 2010 (or 2007) first.
Client Support for Exchange Server 2013
The following clients are compatible with Exchange Server 2013.
- Outlook 2013, Outlook 2010, and Outlook 2007
- Entourage 2008 for Mac, Web Services Edition
- Outlook 2011 for Mac
Outlook 2013 will support Exchange 2013 as-is, but an update is required for Outlook 2010 and 2007.
There will be no support for Outlook 2003. If you’re still running Office 2003 in your environment and intend to upgrade to Exchange 2013 then now would be a good time to begin looking at upgrading your Office installations.
Active Directory Requirements for Exchange Server 2013
In what may be a relief for some customers, Exchange 2013 will support a Windows Server 2003 Forest/Domain functional level, and Windows Server 2003 SP2 domain controllers.
A schema update will be required as usual, and this is part of the same service pack/update rollup that is required for co-existence support.
The Upgrade Process for Exchange Server 2013
The documentation and general guidance for Exchange 2013 upgrades has not been published yet, though we can expect to see the guidance appearing in the Exchange Deployment Assistant in due course.
In the meantime if you want to see an overview of the deployment and co-existence scenarios I do recommend watching Scott’s session from TechEd Australia 2012.
My personal view is that an upgrade project for Exchange 2013 is going to be very similar to that for Exchange Server 2010. Many of the challenges in these upgrades come not from Exchange itself, but more from the integration points such as third party software.
In that respect you will need to watch for announcements from the vendors for products such as your backup software.
My free planning guides for the Exchange 2010 upgrade scenarios can be used even now to begin identifying these integration points and other key elements of your environment that will need consideration during an Exchange 2013 upgrade project.
About Paul Cunningham
Great article, Paul. I’m really looking forward to Exchange 2013 and the new possibilities it introduces.
HI, I am running a hosted version of Exchange 2010 SP2, is there anyways to migrate to Exchange 2013 ? Is that at least supported or should I do a long process of new install and migrate the mailboxes manually etc ?
thanks,
JM
very interesting article Paul Sir
Paul, Do you know if the new Update Rollup 9 for Exchange Server 2007 SP3 has the supported coexistence with Exchange 2013 built in? This was released mid to late Dec 2012.
Thanks
There’s no co-existence support yet in any of the 2007/2010 SP/UR releases.
Hi,
Can you inform, when Microsoft will release for buy Microsoft Exchange 2013 ?
Thanks
Thiago S.
It is already available.
Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 SP3 Released.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36768
Hi Paul,
I have updated exchange 2010 SP3 and added exchange 2013 in a Lab Environment. Have successfully moved mailboxes from exchange 2010 SP3 to exchange 2013. But still i need your advice to do it for our production environment. Still CU1 is not released. Shall I go ahead for the migration of mailboxes without waiting for CU1 for exchange 2013.
Also I need to know the significance of Cumulative Update 1 for exchange 2013.
Regards,
Mohammed
The significance of CU1 is that it is the supported version for co-existence with Exchange 2010 and 2007. Without CU1 you will be running an unsupported environment so obviously I do not recommend that.
Hi Paul
Does CU1 still needed if we are going to upgrade from Exchange 2003/2010 to 2013 and remove previous version? (Not Co-existence)
Thanks.
If you’re talking about the same AD Forest/Exchange org then there is no way to avoid co-existence, you will need to spend some time in co-existence while you’re migrating. CU1 is required for co-existence. Also Ex2013 can’t be installed in an org that has Ex2003 servers.
If you’re talking about migrating to a new AD Forest/Exchange org then you can do that now, no need to wait for CU1 unless you want to wait for CU1 to deliver other bug fixes.
Hi Paul
I bought your guide “Exchange Server 2007 to 2010 Migration Guide” and it was great. Are you going to write “Exchange Server 2010 to 2013 Migration Guide”?
Short answer, yes