This is a second part of a three-part series on Exchange 2007. The first part was titled: “Exchange 2007 Server Role Details and Comparisons”. This article discussed the five different Exchange 2007 server roles and how they fit into the messaging infrastructure. This second part will continue to discuss Exchange 2007 but from an Installation prerequisite standpoint.
The proposed procedure to transition from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007 is the subject of this section.
Microsoft has determined that there are four paths a company could take to deploy Exchange 2007. They are listed below:
Simple Exchange Organization The Simple Exchange Organization contains either a single Exchange server that provides all Exchange services and stores all Exchange data for the entire organization, or multiple Exchange servers in a topology that includes redundant directory servers and an Edge Transport server in a perimeter network.
Standard Exchange Organization The Standard Exchange Organization builds upon the Simple Exchange Organization by deploying multiple computers running Exchange. This is the path many smaller companies will take.
Large Exchange Organization The Large Exchange Organization is the largest organization model that can be deployed in a single Active Directory directory service forest.
Complex Exchange Organization The Complex Exchange Organization is the only model that includes multiple Active Directory forests or the use of synchronization technology.
Of the four installation paths, this article you will spend most of your reading time on the Standard Exchange Organization. While the other three are viable to some organizations, I have space in this article for to highlight only one. This Standard path also is a continuation from the first part of this article series.
Simple Exchange Organization
The Simple Exchange Organization is defined as a single-Exchange server implementation. This single server would be carrying the load of all roles except the ETS (Edge Transport Server). In this simple design, even the single server will typically run active directory also. Or, the Simple Exchange Organization can also be defined as having more than one Exchange server for storage and a single ETS acting as a smart-host sitting in the DMZ. This design is likely going to be the least seen due to the number of very small sized designs compared to the quantity of medium to large-sized infrastructures. These are the simplest to design, however and due to the low hardware and software costs, the least costly to deploy.
Standard Exchange Organization Characteristics
This path involves utilizing most if not all of the five Exchange server roles. Perhaps the UMS (Unified Messaging Server) role would be the left-out role in some organizations because of the hesitation and costs involved in deploying unified messaging and the hardware involved to support this infrastructure. It also is the least known among Exchange administrators.
Microsoft has identified several characteristics of the Standard Exchange Organization, presented below.
In this model, the following are typically true:
- Exchange 2007 is not installed on an AD domain controller server but on its own dedicated hardware.
- Exchange 2007 is installed on more than one server, thereby separating server roles
- The Service Delivery Location (SDL) and Client Service Location (CSL) reside on the same local area network (LAN).
(A Service Delivery Location refers to a physical location where Exchange and other servers reside. The network and location itself must provide sufficient bandwidth and reliability to support Exchange, directory services and other applications. A Client Service Location refers to any location from which the Exchange services are accessed by a group of clients, such as Outlook 2007.)
- There are more than 1,000 mailboxes in the organization.
- There are fewer than five routing groups, and between one and five Active Directory directory service sites. Multiple locations and Active Directory sites introduce the multi-site routing protocol and role discovery algorithms, as well as a requirement to use IP site links.
- There is a single Active Directory forest.
- At least one Edge Transport Server (ETS) role server providing Edge services for Exchange 2007.
- A single point of egress to Internet hosts
Regardless of deployment path, there are prerequisite hardware and software components required to support Exchange 2007. The following is a quick summary of the minimums.
Network and Directory Services
- Active Directory, of course, is required
- The Schema Master role holder DC must be running Server 2003 with SP1
- At least one GC in each AD site in which Exchange server(s) will reside. The OS must be Server 2003 SP1 on the GC.
- For each domain hosting Exchange 2007, the AD domain functional level must be Windows 2000 Server native or higher
- There can be no Exchange 5.5 servers in the same organization as Exchange 2007 and the current present Exchange system must be running in at least Exchange Native mode.
- DNS must be configured correctly within Active Directory
Directory Services Prerequisites
- It is strongly advised to incorporate 64-bit Domain Controllers to increase directory service performance. But, this is not required.
- Microsoft is still recommending a 4:1 ratio of Exchange processors to Global Catalog server processors
Hardware
The following are the recommended minimum hardware requirements for Exchange 2007 servers:
- Any of the following processors:
- Intel Pentium or compatible 800-megahertz (MHz) or faster 32-bit processor
- x64 architecture-based processor that supports Intel Extended Memory 64 Technology (Intel EM64T)
- x64 architecture-based computer with AMD 64-bit processor that supports AMD64 platform
NOTE: Intel Itanium IA64 processors are not supported.
- Memory requirements:
- Minimum: 2 GB of RAM
- Recommended: 2 GB of RAM per server plus 5 megabytes (MB) of RAM per mailbox
- Paging file size should be equal to the amount of RAM in the server plus 10 MB
- At least 1.2 GB of available disk space on the drive on which you install Exchange. An additional 500 MB of available disk space is needed for each Unified Messaging (UM) language pack that you plan to install.
- 200 MB of available disk space on the system drive.
- DVD-ROM drive, local or network accessible.
NOTE: The 32-bit version of Exchange 2007 is provided for testing and training environments only. It is not supported for production environments. In production environments, you must install the 64-bit version of Exchange 2007.
- All Exchange 2007 data partitions must be formatted as NTFS as well as the OS system partition
Operating System
Exchange 2007 is specifically designed to run on computers that are running Microsoft Windows Server 2003.
Exchange 2007 requires the following operating system and Windows components:
- One of the following:
- Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Standard Edition
- Windows Server 2003 SP1, Standard Edition, with Multilingual User Interface Pack (MUI)
- Windows Server 2003 SP1, Enterprise Edition
- Windows Server 2003 SP1, Enterprise Edition, with MUI
- Windows Server 2003 R2, Standard Edition
- Windows Server 2003 R2, Standard Edition, with MUI
- Windows Server 2003 R2, Enterprise Edition
- Windows Server 2003 R2, Enterprise Edition, with MUI
- Windows Server 2003, Standard x64 Edition
- Windows Server 2003, Standard x64 Edition, with MUI
- Windows Server 2003, Enterprise x64 Edition
- Windows Server 2003, Enterprise x64 Edition, with MUI
- Windows Server 2003, R2 Standard x64 Edition
- Windows Server 2003, R2 Standard x64 Edition, with MUI
- Windows Server 2003, R2 Enterprise x64 Edition
- Windows Server 2003, R2 Enterprise x64 Edition, with MUI
- Windows Server 2003 SP2, Standard x64 Edition (available early 2007)
- Windows Server 2003 SP2, Standard x64 Edition, with MUI (available early 2007)
- Windows Server 2003 SP2, Enterprise x64 Edition (available early 2007)
- Windows Server 2003 SP2, Enterprise x64 Edition, with MUI (available early 2007)
- Microsoft .NET Framework Version 2.0. For download information, see .NET Framework Developer Center.
- Windows PowerShell (for Exchange Management Shell). For download information, see the following:
- Windows PowerShell RC2 (for .NET Framework 2.0 RTM) x64
- Windows PowerShell RC2 (for .NET Framework 2.0 RTM) x86
- Windows XP RC2 (for .NET Framework 2.0 RTM) x86
- Microsoft Management Console (MMC) 3.0. For download information, see MMC 3.0 update is available for Windows Server 2003 and for Windows XP.
- On all Mailbox servers with a 64-bit processor, you must install the following Hotfix:
- Update for Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition (KB904639)
- In addition, Exchange 2007 requires that you do not have the Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) service or the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) service installed.
NOTE: If you plan to install cluster continuous replication (CCR) on any of your mailbox servers, you must install the Enterprise Edition of Windows Server 2003. This edition has Cluster service installed by default.
Important: 32-bit Exchange 2007 architecture is not supported on the Microsoft Windows-32-bit-On-Windows-64-bit (WOW64) operating system component. WOW64 is an operating system component in 64-bit Windows that supports 32-bit x86 platform applications.
Software
Exchange 2007 servers require other software. This list comprises the minimums.
Mailbox Server Role (MS)
MSR computers must have the following IIS 6.0 components installed:
- Enable network COM+ access
- Internet Information Services
- World Wide Web Service
- Hotfix 904639 titled: “An access violation may occur when you try to run a 64-bit program that uses the interface remoting component of MDAC 2.8 on a computer that is running Windows Server 2003”
Client Access Server Role (CAS)
- World Wide Web Service
- Remote procedure call (RPC) over Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Proxy Windows networking component. The RPC over HTTP Proxy component is only required on the CAS roles that also provide Microsoft Outlook Anywhere access. Microsoft recommends at least one CAS for Outlook Anywhere access per site.
- ASP.NET version 2.0
Hub Transport Server Role (HTS)
Microsoft indicates the SMTP and the NNTP services cannot be installed and running on an HTS role server.
Edge Transport Server Role (ETS)
Like the HTS role, the ETS also cannot have the services SMTP and NNTP installed and running. If these services are present, remove them entirely.
Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM) must be installed on the ETS. This ETS role will be placed into the DMZ of the infrastructure. It cannot be part of the Active Directory forest to which the Exchange 2007 servers belong. Microsoft recommends the ETS is installed on a stand-alone server.
Client Computers
For all clients that access Exchange 2007 servers, the following requirements must be met.
Outlook
If you use Microsoft Outlook to access an Exchange 2007 mailbox, you must use one of the following versions:
- Office Outlook 2007
- Microsoft Outlook 2003
- Microsoft Outlook 2002
OWA or Outlook Web Access
Besides a web browser, clients will need specifically Microsoft’s Internet Explorer to take advantage of Integrated Windows Authentication (IWA). This provides the best and most seamless method of authentication for your clients.
NOTE: The user experience in Outlook Web Access depends on the location of the user’s mailbox. For example, if a mailbox is located on a Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 back-end server and the Client Access server is running Exchange 2007, the user receives Outlook Web Access in Exchange Server 2003.
Mobile Devices
If you use a mobile device to access your mailbox, confirm that your device is one of the following supported models:
- Mobile phones running Windows Mobile® 2003 Second Edition
- Mobile phones running Windows Mobile 5.0
- Mobile phones running Windows Mobile 5.0 with the Messaging and Security Feature Pack (MSFP)
- Mobile phones running a non-Windows operating system that are compatible with Exchange ActiveSync
POP3 or IMAP4
If you use a Post Office Protocol 3 (POP3) or Internet Message Access Protocol 4 (IMAP4) client computer to access your mailbox, you must have a client computer that meets the requirements for your specific client. For a list of these requirements, consult the documentation for the POP3 or IMAP4 client software.
Planning Considerations for Standard Exchange Organizations
Microsoft and PointBridge research has revealed the following points and best-practice strategies regarding Standard Exchange deployments.
· A single forest presents the easiest Active Directory environment, compared to multiple forests.
· As AD sites increase in complexity so does internal and external-directed e-mail services. Therefore, as more sites are created, more Exchange SDLs are all created for each of the respective sites. To provide for the most efficient mail delivery internally, deploy multiple HTS in each site, (or at least one per site) to handle internal routing of mail within sites and between sites, and deploy several ETS to handle external mail flow.
· As more AD sites are added to the organization, the more complicated AD replication can become. Generally, intrasite replication occurs very rapidly due to all domain controllers being in the same site. A typical replication interval for domain controllers is five minutes or less. Intersite replication will have a higher latency because site links involved in connecting the sites generally allow for replication occurring every 15 minutes or much longer depending on how site links are configured. As more sites are added, the latency time factor should be carefully monitored to identify AD replication bottlenecks should they occur.
· The larger the AD site topology the stricter the Exchange 2007 server configuration and deployment will become.
· Because Exchange 2007 so heavily relies on correct AD site configuration, careful planning of IP sub netting – both physically and logically – will be mandated. The AD sites and subnet object configuration must match the physical LAN/WAN infrastructure the organization has deployed.
· It is heavily stressed that correctly configured and effective perimeter networks be established when not existing, prior to deploying Exchange 2007.
· Due to the expanded number of Exchange 2007 servers now possible – especially if separation of roles is established on separate servers – providing fault tolerance and disaster recovery measures are more critical than ever. Establish sound processes to ensure the availability of these critical servers.
Well, this should give you plenty of reading on the prerequisites of Exchange 2007 deployment for the majority of situations.
The last of this three-part series will feature the newest of the Exchange 2007 roles – the Unified Messaging Server role.
