MS Exchange, AD Server, Changing Domain Name - What is the best practice?
ello. I am running MS Exchange 2007, Server 2008 R2 as my Active Directory and have a domain registered for my company. I have absolutely no documentation on all the current configurations. And I have started building one. Also, my background is Electrical/Electronics. However, I am the all purpose IT Guy for my company. I have been told that starting January 12th 2011, our company is going to have a name change. Example, dbworks to jpdbworks. This will mean I will be changing, the following Domain associated services. 1. Email : user111@dbworks.com to user111@jbdbworks.com and an online web access (OWA) mail.dbworks.com to mail.jpdbworks.com. 2. Domain Name in the active directory: dbworks.com to jpdbworks.com 3. Company home page: www.dbworks.com Other services which are registered to this domain change are 1. Postini Spam Filtering Service. 2. All our public IPs are provided by our ISP- Cebeyond. My question: 1. What is the best practice to start the migration process? Are there any major aspects to keep in mind when considering the change? 2. Can I keep the old domain active for few months till all our customers and clients have been notified of the change? 3. How simple or complicated is it to make the change in the Active Directory, MS Exchange and other services associated with the old company Domain. 4. Any books, or online material I can purchase to start preparing for the transition? Thank you in advance, Regards, -DDbworks
October 20th, 2010 8:57pm

Having had no responses in the IT Manager forum, I'm going to move this thread to what I hope will be a more appropriate forum. KevinKevin Remde US IT Evangelism - Microsoft Corporation http://blogs.technet.com/kevinremde
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
November 1st, 2010 7:43am

Hi, As to Exchange you can just add the new domain to the E-mail policy there is in place already, this is done in the Exchange manament console under "Organization Configuration, Hub Transport, E-mail Address Policies" there should be a default policy there you can edit. You can make this change now and just set the new domain to secondary address and then when you officially change you switch the two domains. The domain changes a somewhat more complicated than this. There is a small guide here: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/techscrawl/server-2008-domain-rename-28069 but you should not start this change unless you are 100% sure of what you are doing. If you absolutly want to change the name of the AD domain I suggest you hire a consultant to follow you though this process. About books you could read up on Microsoft server administration and Exchange 2007. There are good books from Microsoft Press and from Sams. I.e link here: http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Exchange-Server-2007-Unleashed/dp/0672329204 /MartinExchange is a passion not just a collaboration software.
November 1st, 2010 9:45am

Martin, Thank you for your response and I really appreciate your guidance. I will check out the links you have suggested, thoroughly make myself familiar and execute the whole process on paper before I implement it. The first step that I was able to carry out was registering a new domain, so now I am sure what the new domain will be. Secondly I am going to study and record our existing setup, as we do not have much documentation on what we have and no records were kept on how the systems were configured. The management has provided me the date of change in our company name to be JAN 2011 and as I am the only one in the whole of IT, I feel empowered that I will be able to move on it fast but considering the fact that I am new to the IT world (primarily Instrumentation & Elect.) makes it challenging. Thanks you once again. Durgesh [p.s, Kevin, Thank you for taking care of my question] Dbworks
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
December 8th, 2010 1:56pm

This topic is archived. No further replies will be accepted.

Other recent topics Other recent topics