Current Situation: We have Active Directory Domain setup as CompanyName.local and our Domain Name (CompanyName.com), website, and E-Mail are hosted through Network Solutions. All DNS records for CompanyName.com point to Network Solutions' Servers. We have only 50 E-Mail users, with only 3 users that have mobility requirements. I am in the process of installing Exchange Server 2010. I have installed the HUB, Client, Unified Messaging, and Mailbox roles on a single server. Is it possible to keep our Active Directory Domain as CompanyName.local, keep our E-Mail and Website hosted through Network Solutions, and setup our Exchange Server to simply download all E-Mails from our hosted accounts into corresponding Exchange Server Mailboxes that all internal clients send and receive through? Would our 3 mobility users be able to continue downloading directly from our hosted (POP3) E-Mail provider when out of the office, and then sync with the Exchange Server upon returning to the office?

The active directory domain has nothing to do with your SMTP domain names(s). They can be the same or different. It doesn't matter. Generally, best practice is to change your UPN suffix and user principal name for users so that their UPN is the same as their e-mail address to lessen confusion. But that is not a requirement. As to downloading your mail, POP3 is a single mailbox client mail retrieval protocol, not a mail transport protocol. Any attempt to use it as a mail transport protocol is a great big kludge. Exchange is designed to connect to the Internet using SMTP. You should work with your ISP to route your mail to your Exchange server using SMTP. Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems."

Thank you for the clarification regarding domain names and UPNs...that helps clear up a lot! As for the POP3 situation, I understand that POP3 is not a transport protocol and is not designed to be used as such. I did a Google search and found that there seem to be several third-party applications or add-ons that would facilitate the scenario I had described above. I was just wondering if anyone had ever attempted anything like this, had any success or problems with it, or could recommend what the best solution is if they've had success with it. If you or anyone has had any stable success with it, I'd be interested in hearing about it. However, based on your recommendation above, unless I hear anything to the contrary, I'll pursue the Edge Transport and modifying the MX records route.

Hi MrKristoff, 1. Per your description, you want to use the hosted email system and your own on premise emailsystem togther. and you also want use the same smtp address CompanyName.com for your own on premise email system, right? You could refer to below information: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb676395.aspx That means, either the hosted email system relay the email for your own email system, or vice versa. 2. If you just want to foard the emial from the hosted email mailbox to the mailbox in your own email system, you need use the different smtp email address for your own email system, and let your hosted email provider help you do the forwarding. In this situation, all the users would have two mailbox, and then client could configure two mailbox. After all, all the methods are not a better and easy idea, I would suggest that you could use your own email system, and do not use the hosted email system. If you have any confused thind, please feel free let know. Regards! TechNet Subscriber Support in forum if you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.com Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread. Gavin TechNet Community Support

Hi MrKristoff, 1. Per your description, you want to use the hosted email system and your own on premise emailsystem togther. and you also want use the same smtp address CompanyName.com for your own on premise email system, right? You could refer to below information: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb676395.aspx That means, either the hosted email system relay the email for your own email system, or vice versa. 2. If you just want to forward the emial from the hosted email mailbox to the mailbox in your own email system, you need to use the different smtp email address for your own email system, and let your hosted email provider help you do the forwarding. In this situation, all the users would have two mailbox, and then client could configure two mailbox. After all, all the methods are not a better and easy idea, I would suggest that you could use your own email system, and do not use the hosted email system. If you have any confused thind, please feel free let know. Regards! TechNet Subscriber Support in forum if you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.com Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread. Gavin TechNet Community Support

Hi Any update for your issue? Regards! TechNet Subscriber Support in forum if you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.com Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.Gavin TechNet Community Support