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Best practices for multiple company merge

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Best practices for multiple company merge - 18.Aug.2008 5:44:33 PM

junderwood

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Joined: 18.Aug.2008
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We currently are running a 03 R2 server with Exchange 2003. I have been tasked to find a way to bring 4 other sites into our exchange enviroment. All 4 sites have the same @companyx.com domain. However they currently get email from an offsite location and store everything to .psts locally. they have roughly 220 exchange clients. I believe the best way to do this would just be to suck all the pst's in. My question is, is this the best method, if not i am open to all suggestions and also any help in actually accomplishing this.

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RE: Best practices for multiple company merge - 18.Aug.2008 7:08:34 PM

Junior6621

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This sounds like a good idea. You could also store the PST's on the network and add them to the newly created Exchange Server mailboxes in addition to the mailboxes. I would recommend 2 exchange servers for the amount of clients you stated. You can use one in the beginning. At that point you will need a front-end server to simplify things. I usually stick to about 50 -75 users per server. Unless you move to Exchange 2007, then you could get away with alot more.

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RE: Best practices for multiple company merge - 19.Aug.2008 5:46:13 PM

junderwood

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we will more than likely keep to one server for know due to restraints on financials. My next questions really is how to go about doing this, i am not an exchange admin by a long shot, but have kinda been thrown into this task by my boss, and have a very short time frame to come up to speed on things. I am in IT so i have a general grasp for exchange but could really use any help you have to offer either right from you or if you know any books/web articles that exist that are good for helping to bring you up to speed on all things exchange i would appreciate it

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RE: Best practices for multiple company merge - 20.Aug.2008 1:33:06 PM

Junior6621

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Well, we are on a great resource right now. Check through the articles on the left. They go through everything from installing Exchange 2003 to setting up Mobile Access. Another good place is Microsoft's Technet for Exchange.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/bb331586.aspx

Some good books: Exchange Server 2003 Resource Kit Published by Microsoft and Sybex

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RE: Best practices for multiple company merge - 20.Aug.2008 1:56:04 PM

junderwood

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Joined: 18.Aug.2008
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i will delve into some of the resources here as well, my next question is that we are near our max exchange store size 13gb, will definately go over the 18gb limit once we acquire the other companies, i have seen that there is a registry change you can do to increase it to 75gb. Or we can upgrade to enterprise edition . My question is, is the upgrade to enterprise edition as easy as installing over top of standard or is there more to it.

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RE: Best practices for multiple company merge - 20.Aug.2008 2:07:21 PM

Junior6621

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The upgrade to Enterprise is an easy overlay.

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RE: Best practices for multiple company merge - 20.Aug.2008 2:54:22 PM

junderwood

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any pitfalls or problems i should be aware before hand to minimize the time and also my headache level?

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RE: Best practices for multiple company merge - 21.Aug.2008 6:00:59 AM

123raghu

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Joined: 18.Mar.2008
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Hiya, check out the article to upgrade to Enterprise edition....."http://www.petri.co.il/upgrading_from_exchange_server_standard_edition_to_the_enterprise_edition.htm".....but don't upgrade just for the sake of it, as I can see u have maximum of 300 user's and a standard edition is enough for u, however ensure u have SP 2 installed as only then u can use the registry key (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/828070/en-us) to increase the size of the DB.

And think of upgrading to enterprise only if you plan to organize u'r user's mailboxes into different stores or if u plan to implement clustering or if you think the size of the DB is going to increase way past 75 GB.

Also check out the comparisions between std and ent at "http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822440"

_____________________________

It is not how much you do, but how much love you put in the doing......

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