- Pre-Migration Operational Evaluations
- Exchange Migration Roadma
- Prerequisites and Precautions
- Active Directory Connector Operation
- Forest and Domain Preparation
- ADC Installation
- Connection Agreement Properties
- Initial Exchange 2003 Server Installation
- Connection Agreement Testing
- Site Replication Service Configuration
- Completing the Migration
- Shift to Exchange Native Mode
- Looking Forward
Shift to Exchange Native Mode
Once you have decommissioned all your legacy servers, you can shift the Exchange organization to Native mode. This exposes the following additional features:
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Move mailboxes between Administrative Groups. In Native mode, you can move a user's mailbox from an Exchange server in one AG to an Exchange server in another AG, so long as you have Exchange Administrator permissions on both AGs.
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Consolidate Administrative Groups. Once you're in Native mode, you can create Administrative Groups that make sense from an IT operational perspective instead of the site-centric model in legacy Exchange. The only drawback is that you cannot move servers from one Administrative Group to another. You'll have to install a server in the new Administrative Group, move mailboxes and connectors to this server, and then decommission and reuse the old server. This is called a "swing" transfer. Native mode also allows you to have Routing Group boundaries that do not follow the boundaries of Administrative Groups.
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Create Query-Based Distribution Groups. The Native mode organization permits you to mail-enable a QDG so you can take advantage of the dynamic group membership features inherent in QDG operation.
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8BITMIME on Exchange 2003 Bridgehead Servers. If two bridgehead servers in a Native mode organization run Exchange 2003, then they use 8BITMIME for data transfers. This improves bandwidth utilization by nearly 15 percent, all other things being equal.
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Automatic Zombie removal. When Exchange 2003 evaluates trustees in an Access Control List, if it finds an entry referring to an account that no longer exists, it removes the entry from the ACL. This eventually eliminates any performance issues arising from zombie entries on public folder permissions.
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Mailbox-enable InetOrgPerson objects. If you need to create instances of the InetOrgPerson class to use as User objects for compatibility with NDS or PeopleSoft or iPlanet, you can mail-enable and mailbox-enable those objects once the organization is in Native mode.
You cannot reverse the shift to Exchange Native mode. Once you save the configuration change, you can no longer introduce legacy Exchange servers into your organization.
Shifting to Native mode toggles the msExchMixedMode attribute in the Organization object to FALSE. Don't try using a utility to toggle it back to TRUE because other configuration changes are made in the background once an Exchange server sees the Native mode flag.
Native Mode Prerequisites
You must decommission all legacy Exchange servers in the organization before shifting to Native mode. This involves removing (de-installing) Exchange from the servers. If you have servers that no longer function, you can delete the associated objects from Active Directory using Exchange System Manager. (You might need to remove the objects from the SRS using Admin, as well.)
You must also remove Site Replication Service from your organization by shutting down the service using ESM at each SRS server. SRS maintains a copy of the legacy Directory Service, so from the perspective of Exchange, an Exchange 2003 server running SRS represents a legacy server.
Performing the Shift
When you're ready to do the shift, launch ESM and open the Properties window for the Organization object at the top of the tree. Figure 12.46 shows an example.
Figure 12.46 The Organization properties window showing the Change Mode button, which will be available only if all prerequisites are met to shift to Exchange Native mode.legacy Exchange serversmigration to Exchange 2003shifting to Native modemigration from legacy Exchangeshifting to Native mode
If you have done all the necessary prerequisites to make the change to Native mode, the Change Mode button will be available. Click the button, acknowledge the warning, click OK and you're done.
Yes, it's true.
You're done.
At least for now.