Lesson 3: Microsoft Exchange 2010, Pre-Requests & AD Preparation

Lesson 3: Microsoft Exchange 2010, Pre-Requests & AD Preparation

In first lesson, we talk about an Exchange Overview, History, Licenses and Editions.

In second lesson, we talked about Exchange 2010 roles and system requirements.

From this lesson, we will start interact with Exchange 2010, we will start that by installing the Pre-Requests and & prepare Active Directory. You will start seeing the installation and configuration snapshot.

Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V technology will be use in our LAB, Our LAB will include the latest technology from Microsoft, our LAB will contain the following:

1-Windows Server 2008 SP2 as a Domain Controller.

2-Windows Server 2008 SP2 to install Exchange 2010 on it.

3-Windows 7 as a client join to the domain and Office 2007 installed in this Machine (we try to get a copy from office 2010 to use it in our LAB).

Microsoft Exchange 2010 Pre-Requests

To perform the following procedures to install Exchange 2010 Pre-Requests you have to make sure from the following:

1- The account you use must be membership in the local Administrators group in Exchange Server.

2- The full installation option of Windows Server 2008 must be used for all Exchange 2010 servers and management workstations. Exchange 2010 can’t be installing in Windows Server 2008 Core.

3- For all server roles other than the Edge Transport server role, you must first join the computer to the internal Active Directory domain.

There are two types of Exchange 2010 Pre-Requests, Windows components and Software Pre-Requests. Let’s see what each one include.

1- Windows Component Pre-Requests

· Active Directory Management Tools. This component used to allow preparing Active Directory Schema & Domain from server running Windows 2008.

· Install Internet Information Services (IIS) with the necessary services.

· Install Microsoft Windows Media Player Audio/Video codec’s which required for Unified Messaging server.

2- Software Pre-Requests

I. Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5

II. Extensions for ASP.NET AJAX 1.0

III. Windows PowerShell V2 CTP3

IV. Install Office 2007 System Converter: Microsoft Filter Pack

Let’s start install Exchange 2010 Pre-Requests:

Windows Component Pre-Requests

1. Install Active Directory Management Tools. From CMD, run “ServerManagerCmd -i RSAT-ADDS” as the following:



As we can see above, the command is succeeded and it’s requiring to restart the server. We will restart the server then we will do the next step.

1. Install the necessary Internet Information Services (IIS) prerequisites by running the following commands in the order in which they are listed:

· ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Server

· ServerManagerCmd -i Web-ISAPI-Ext

· ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Metabase

· ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console

· ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Basic-Auth

· ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Digest-Auth

· ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Windows-Auth

· ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Dyn-Compression

· ServerManagerCmd -i NET-HTTP-Activation

· ServerManagerCmd -I RPC-over-HTTP-proxy

ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Server:




ServerManagerCmd -i Web-ISAPI-Ext:




ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Metabase:




ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console:




ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Basic-Auth:





ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Digest-Auth:




ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Windows-Auth:




ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Dyn-Compression:





ServerManagerCmd -i NET-HTTP-Activation:





ServerManagerCmd -I RPC-over-HTTP-proxy:




3. You can Install Microsoft Windows Media Player audio/video running the following Command:



All IIS components installed now, let’s restart the server and continue after that.


Software Pre-Requests

Now we will start install Exchange 2010 software Pre-Requests. We mentioned above, there are 5 Software-requests as the following Picture:





1. Install Microsoft .Net Framework 3.5, in “Welcome to Setup” page, select “I have read and ACCEPT the terms of the License Agreement” then Click Install:



As you can see, .Net Framework starts downloads some components and then installs them. You need to keep your server connected to the Internet to do this task.



Installation done, click Exit:



2. Install Extensions for ASP.NET AJAX 1.0, in “Welcome to the Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions 1.0 Setup Wizard” page, click next:



On “End-User License Agreement” page, select “I accept the terms in the license agreement” and then click next:



On “Ready to install Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions 1.0” page, click on Install:



Installation is done, Click Finish:



3. Install Windows PowerShell V2 CTP3, Click on OK when the MSG appears:



Click on “I Accept” button to continue:



Installation Start:



Installtion finish, Click on “Restart Now” to restart the server after the installation of PowerShell V2 have been done:



4. Install Office 2007 System Converter: Filter Pack 1.0, on welcome page, click next:



On “End-User License Agreement” page, click on “I accept the terms in the license Agreement” then click next:



Installation finishes successfully, Click OK:




Now; do we can say; we did all Exchange 2010 Pre-Requests. The answer is YES, but it’s recommended to do another three steps which they are:

1- Check Windows Update and make sure it’s updated up to date and it’s appear like the following:





2- Run the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA). MBSA a tool which designed to determine the security state according to Microsoft security recommendations and offers specific report. You can apply this tool locally and remotely.

After you download and install the tool, run it and then click on “Scan a Computer”:



In the following page, select to computer name and all scan options and then click on “Start Scan”:




MBSA start now downloading the security update form Microsoft, after this finish, the tool will start checking the server:




Scan is finish; MBSA provide you a report for you server settings. Review the report, check the errors and warning and see if you need to change them and check the recommendation. In the following a snapshot of MBSA report:







Prepare Active Directory and Domains

In the following we will explains how to prepare the Active Directory and domains for installing Exchange 2010. You must complete this procedure before you install Exchange 2010 on any servers in your organization.

Note: If you run the Exchange 2010 Setup wizard with an account that has the permissions required to prepare Active Directory and the domain, the wizard will automatically prepare Active Directory and the domain. But we will do it manually through command prompt.

Prepare Schema:

To install Exchange Server 2010, you need First Extend the Active Directory Schema; we will do this by using the "PrepareSchema" switch with "Setup" command from the command prompt. To use this command, you need to be a member of schema administrator and enterprise administrator groups. We will do that by the following steps:

1- You have to point the command prompt to the Exchange 2010 Folder as the following:




2- Run PrepareSchema command as the following:



3- After the Schema is extended, you can prepare the Active Directory of the organization by using "PrepareAD" Switch with Setup Command. Note that you need to specify the Organization name with the command as the following:



4- Now you need to prepare the Domain by using “PrepareDomain” switch. To run this command, you need to be a member of Domain Administrator Group:




In this lesson, we did all Exchange 2010 Pre-Request installation and Active Directory preparation. In next lesson, we will install Exchange 2010.

Regards,

AYUB KHAN

Lesson 2: Microsoft Exchange 2010, before deployment

Lesson 2: Microsoft Exchange 2010, before deployment


In first lesson, we talk about an Exchange Overview, History, Licenses and Editions. You can check in the following link:

In lesson 2, we will talk about Exchange 2010 roles and system requirements. This lesson is important to deploy Exchange 2010 in the right way. Let’s start.
Exchange 2010 Roles


A server role is a unit that logically groups the features and components that are required to perform a specific function in the messaging environment.
Each server role includes features that support its function together with related configuration and security settings and a list of predefined tasks for managing and configuring those features.
Exchange 2010 provides five server roles, in the following a list of all roles and a brief of each one:

1- Client Access Server (CAS): Client Access server role supports OWA, ActiveSync POP3 and IMAP4 clients. The CAS role also supports services, such as the Autodiscover service and Web services.

2- Hub Transport Server: Hub Transport server role handles all mail flow inside and outside the organization, applies transport rules, applies journaling policies, and delivers messages to a recipient's mailbox. If you don’t have Edge Transport server, you can install and configure the Edge Transport server agents on the Hub Transport server to provide anti-spam and antivirus protection inside the organization.

3- Mailbox Server: The Mailbox server role hosts mailbox and public folder databases. It also generates the offline address book (OAB). Mailbox servers provide services that calculate e-mail address policies and address lists for recipients, and enforce managed folders.

4- Edge Transport server: Exchange 2010, the Edge Transport server role is deployed in your organization's perimeter network. Designed to minimize the attack surface, the Edge Transport server handles all Internet-facing mail flow, which provides Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) relay and smart host services for the Exchange organization.

5- Unified Messaging (UM): Unified Messaging combines voice messaging and e-mail into one Inbox, which can be accessed from the telephone and the computer.


Exchange Role Notes:
1- You should have CAS, HUB and Mailbox at least in your Exchange Environment.
2- Edge server should be installing in DMZ as a workgroup.
3- All roles except Edge can be installed in one server.
4- Edge Transport role always installed alone, you can’t add any role with edge in the same server.
5- Combined or separated of roles could be happen, it’s always depending in your requirements.

System Requirements

Before you start install Microsoft Exchange 2010, you should make sure that you review all of Exchange 2010 system requirements such as network, hardware, software, clients. In the following, we are going to list all requirements of Exchange 2010:


1- Operating System: You can install Exchange 2010 in a 64-bit edition of Windows Server 2008 Standard or Enterprise with SP2.

2- Domain & Forest Functional Level: Exchange 2010 requires Domain and Forest (both) Functional Levels to be at least Windows 2003. In another worlds; all domain controller in your environment they should be installed at least by windows 2003.

3- Global Catalog: You should implement a Global Catalog Server in each site that you need to install Exchange 2010 on it.

4- Hardware: To run Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Enterprise Edition Beta on x64 platforms, you need:
· x64 architecture-based computer
· Minimum of 4 GB of RAM.
· At least 1.2 GB on the drive used for installation and additional 500 MB for each Unified Messaging (UM) and language pack that you plan to install plus 200 MB of available disk space on the system drive
· Drive―DVD-ROM drive.
· Disk partitions formatted as NTFS file system

Note: It’s recommended to install Exchange 2010 in member server. Installing Exchange 2010 in a domain controller is not recommended. Changing the server role to be a Domain controller or vice-versa after installing exchange 2010 is not supported.

Second lesson is done, in the next lesson; we will start installing Exchange Prerequisites and preparing the active directory to install Exchange 2010.

Regards,
AYUB KHAN

Lesson 1: Microsoft Exchange 2010, Start from here

Lesson 1: Microsoft Exchange 2010, Start from here

As we promise you; this is the first lesson of Exchange 2010 learning series. We will post a new lesson every week. In this lesson, we will talk briefly about Exchange 2010 Overview, History, Licenses and Editions. It’s important to know that information before you start implementing Microsoft Exchange 2010 in your network.

Overview

Microsoft Exchange Server is a messaging and collaborative software product developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Microsoft Servers line of server products and is widely used by enterprises using Microsoft infrastructure solutions. Exchange's major features consist of electronic mail, calendaring, contacts and tasks; support for mobile and web-based access to information; and support for data storage.

History

The history of Microsoft Exchange is quite interesting and began in 1993 when the XENIX mail system was changed to the Exchange Server. In January 1995; around 500 users were migrated and start using the Exchange Server Beta 1. By April 1996; 32,000 users were migrated to the environment

In the following a list of all Exchange history versions:
· Exchange Server 4.0 released on June 1996, it's the original version of Exchange Server sold to the public.

· Exchange Server 5.0 released On May 1997, it's introduced the new Exchange Administrator console, as well as opening up integrated access to SMTP-based networks for the first time.

· Exchange Server 5.5 released On November 1997, it sold in two editions, Standard and Enterprise. They differ in database store size, mail transport connectors and clustering capabilities.

· Exchange Server 2000 (v6.0) released on November 2000, unlike Exchange Server 5.5, Exchange Server 2000 had no inbuilt Directory Service, and had a dependency upon Active Directory.

· Exchange Server 2003 (v6.5) released on September 2003, this version has enhanced disaster recovery, Outlook Mobile Access and server-side ActiveSync functionalities added, Better anti-virus and anti-spam protection have also been added, improved message and mailbox management tools.

· Exchange Server 2007 (v8 or with SP1 v8.1) released on November 2006 to business customers as part of Microsoft's roll-out wave of new products. It includes new clustering options, 64-bit support for greater scalability, voice mail integration, better search and support for Web services, better filtering options, and a new Outlook Web Access interface.

· Exchange Server 2010 version will be available from the second half of 2009. A 360 day beta is now downloadable from TechNet.

Licenses

Exchange Server requires Client Access Licenses (CAL), which are different from Windows CALs. Corporate license agreements, such as the Enterprise Agreement (EA), include Exchange Server CALs. It also comes as part of the Core CAL.

Just like Windows Server and other server products from Microsoft, you can choose to use User or Device CALs. Device CALs are assigned to a device (workstation, laptop or PDA). User CALs are assigned to a user or employee (not a mailbox).

User CALs allow a user to access Exchange e-mail from any device. User and Device CALs are the same price, however cannot be used interchangeably.

Two types of Exchange CAL are available: Exchange CAL Standard and Exchange CAL Enterprise. The Enterprise CAL is an add-on license to the Standard CAL.

Editions

Exchange 2010 comes in two editions (Standard & Enterprise); these are licensing editions that are defined by a product key. When you enter a valid license product key, the supported edition for the server is established.

Product keys can be used for the same edition key swaps and upgrades only, and they cannot be used for downgrades. You can use a valid product key to go from the evaluation version (Trial Edition) to either Standard Edition or Enterprise Edition. You can also use a valid product key to go from Standard Edition to Enterprise Edition.

The next lesson will cover Exchange 2010 Roles and System requirements to implement the product. We will not keep you waiting for a week for this lesson; we will post it at next Monday. We will do that because; next week we will start implementing Exchange 2010.

Regards,
AYUB KHAN