If you would like to read the other parts in this article series please go to:
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 1)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 2)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 3)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 4)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 5)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 6)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 7)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 8)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 9)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 10)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 11)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 12)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 13)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 14)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 15)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 17)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 18)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 19)
Post-Installation Configuration Changes, Continued
Configuring Receive Connectors
We’ll need to ensure that the same settings are applied to Receive Connectors on Exchange 2013 as per our Exchange 2010 staging server. The main change we made for our example organization was to create an Anonymous Relay connector, so we will create a connector with the same basic settings on Exchange 2013.
To begin, launch the Exchange Admin Center and navigate to Mail Flow>Receive Connectors and after selecting the Exchange 2013 server from the list, then choose Add (+) to create a new Receive Connector:
Figure 1: Viewing and creating new Receive Connectors
On the first page of the wizard, enter the name for the receive connector. For consistency we’ve specified the server name after entering Anonymous Relay. Select Frontend Transport as the role and choose Custom as the type:
Figure 2: Creating a new Anonymous Relay connector
On the next page, we’ll be provided with the opportunity to specify Network Adapter Bindings – the IP address and TCP/IP port that the receive connector will listen on. Our example receive connector will listen on the standard port for SMTP, port 25:
Figure 3: Selecting TCP/IP IP listener and port bindings
On the final page of the wizard, we’ll choose which IP addresses that the receive connector will accept mail for. This allows multiple receive connectors to listen on the same TCP/IP port and IP address and swing into action depending on the remote IP address of a client. As our SMTP service on Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2010 only allowed mail relay from the IP addresses 192.168.15.210-220, we’ll specify that range here:
Figure 4: Specifying a range of IP addresses that will be able to connect to this connector
After completing the wizard, we will then open the new Receive Connector’s properties page by selecting it from the list, then choosing Edit, as shown below:
Figure 5: Editing properties for the new Receive Connector
In the Exchange Receive Connector window, select the Security tab. Then within the Authentication section select Externally secured to indicate our anonymous relay is from secure IPs; then under Permission Groups, choose Exchange Servers and Anonymous users:
Figure 6: Updating settings to allow relay
Moving Default Mailbox Databases
We will move the initial database created by Exchange Server 2013 setup and make it our first Mailbox Database. After migration it will be named DB01 but during the Exchange 2010 migration we will temporarily prefix each Exchange 2013 database with _E15.
To perform this action we will perform a two-step process using the Exchange Management Shell.
First, launch the Exchange Management Shell and use the following command to rename the database to DB01_E15:
| Get-MailboxDatabase -Server <Server> | Set-MailboxDatabase -Name DB01_E15 |
Figure 7: Renaming the existing Database
In the example above you’ll see that by executing the Get-MailboxDatabase cmdlet before making the change we see it’s default name – Mailbox Database with a random suffix. After making the change the name is changed to the value specified.
With the database renamed, it still remains in-place and needs to be moved whilst offline. We’ll move both the Database file and the associated log files to their respective final destinations using the Move-DatabasePath cmdlet with the -EdbFilePath and -LogFolderPath parameters:
| Move-DatabasePath -Identity DB01_E15 -EdbFilePath C:\ExchangeDatabases\DB01\DB01.EDB -LogFolderPath C:\ExchangeDatabases\DB01_Log |
Figure 8: Moving the existing database
When we move the database it will be temporarily dismounted. The files will then be moved to the new location and the database and log locations updated in Active Directory. Finally the database will be re-mounted.
Creating Additional Mailbox Databases
Just as we did on our Exchange 2010 staging server, we will need to create the additional Mailbox Databases to match our design specifications. We can create the mailbox databases using either the Exchange Admin Center or the Exchange Management Shell.
We’ll first explore the procedure to accomplish this through the Exchange Admin Center and then look at the equivalent procedure using PowerShell.
After login to the EAC, navigate to Servers then select the Databases tab. To add a new database select the Add button, as shown below:
Figure 9: Using the EAC to create databases
The New Database window should appear. You will be presented with fields for the Database name, server and the Database file path and log folder path. Enter these as per your design. In our case, we’ll create DB02 on the server LJD-E1501 within the C:\ExchangeDatabases folders DB02 and DB02_Log.
By default the option to Mount this database is selected. Change this to unchecked, as to avoid errors we will wait a few moments before mounting to account for Active Directory replication:
Figure 10: Specifying basic settings for new databases
Upon creating each Mailbox Database a warning will show prompting you to restart the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service. This is because the amount of cache the Information Store allocated depends on the number of databases with copies on the server. Therefore, for it to correctly calculate the amount of memory it requires for cache purposes, restart the service.
After giving the service a quick restart, select each database and choose Mount from the More Options (…) drop-down:
Figure 11: Using the EAC to mount new databases
The same tasks can be accomplished using the Exchange Management Shell, which for a larger number of databases will be faster and more accurate.
The cmdlets that we’ll need to use are New-MailboxDatabase, Restart-Service, Get-MailboxDatabase and Mount-Database. In the example shown below we will use the first cmdlet to create the databases (as you might expect), restart the Information Store, then Get all databases and ensure they are mounted:
| New-MailboxDatabase -Name DB02_E15 -Server <Server> -EdbFilePath C:\ExchangeDatabases\DB02\DB02.EDB -LogFolderPath C:\ExchangeDatabases\DB02_Log
New-MailboxDatabase -Name DB03_E15 -Server <Server> -EdbFilePath C:\ExchangeDatabases\DB03\DB03.EDB -LogFolderPath C:\ExchangeDatabases\DB03_Log New-MailboxDatabase -Name DB04_E15 -Server <Server> -EdbFilePath C:\ExchangeDatabases\DB04\DB04.EDB -LogFolderPath C:\ExchangeDatabases\DB04_Log New-MailboxDatabase -Name DB05_E15 -Server <Server> -EdbFilePath C:\ExchangeDatabases\DB05\DB05.EDB -LogFolderPath C:\ExchangeDatabases\DB05_Log Restart-Service MSExchangeIS Get-MailboxDatabase -Server <Server>| Mount-Database |
Figure 12: Creating new databases and mounting databases using PowerShell
Configuring Mailbox Database Settings
After we have moved our first Mailbox Database and created our additional mailbox databases to match our design, we will now need to configure each database with the correct limits. In part four of this series we decided to keep limits as they were for Exchange 2010 to ensure as little storage was required as possible whilst it acted as a staging server and then increase limits in Exchange 2013.
The limits chosen are shown below, along with retention settings for mailboxes:
|
Warning Limit |
Prohibit Send Limit |
Prohibit Send/Receive Limit |
Keep Deleted Items for (days) |
Keep Deleted Mailboxes for (days) |
|
9.8GB |
9.9GB |
10GB |
14 |
30 |
We will first perform the configuration using the Exchange Admin Center, then show how to automate the configuration steps using the Exchange Management Shell.
After launching the Exchange Admin Center, navigate to Servers then choose the Databases tab. Then select the first database in the list, then choose Edit, as shown below:
Figure 13: Modifying database settings using the EAC
The Mailbox Database Properties window will open. Select the Limits tab and adjust as appropriate to match the settings in your design. In our example, we’ll enter the configuration settings specified above:
Figure 14: Configuring Mailbox Database limits in the Mailbox Database properties window
After performing this step for the first database, repeat for each subsequent mailbox database.
If you have more than just a couple of mailbox databases to configure, you’ll find that PowerShell can make this job quicker, so long as you know which parameters to set. Using a combination of the Get-MailboxDatabase cmdlet and Set-MailboxDatabase cmdlet we can make these changes:
| Get-MailboxDatabase -Server <Server> | Set-MailboxDatabase -IssueWarningQuota 9.8GB -ProhibitSendQuota 9.9GB -ProhibitSendReceiveQuota 10GB -OfflineAddressBook “Default Offline Address Book (Ex2013)” -DeletedItemRetention “14:00:00” -MailboxRetention “30:00:00” |
Figure 15: Using PowerShell to modify all new databases
Summary
In this part of our Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 migration series we have completed the post installation basic configuration of our Exchange 2013 server. In the next part in this series we will prepare the Exchange server for coexistence with our Exchange 2010 server and ensure it is ready for mailbox migrations.
If you would like to read the other parts in this article series please go to:
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 1)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 2)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 3)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 4)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 5)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 6)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 7)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 8)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 9)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 10)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 11)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 12)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 13)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 14)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 15)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 17)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 18)
- Planning and Migrating a Small Organization from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 (Part 19)
