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Upgrading Clustered Mailbox Servers to Exchange 2007 SP1 or later

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Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 will reach end of support on April 11, 2017. To stay supported, you will need to upgrade. For more information, see Resources to help you upgrade your Office 2007 servers and clients.

 

Applies to: Exchange Server 2007 SP1, Exchange Server 2007 SP2

Upgrading a clustered mailbox server from the release to manufacturing (RTM) version of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 to Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1) or later versions is a relatively straightforward process. However, there are specific things that must be considered and planned for with respect to the upgrade.

Note

It is recommended to make a complete backup of the clustered mailbox server before you upgrade to a later version of Exchange 2007 and again after you complete the upgrade. The backup should include a system state backup to capture schema changes if required.
To perform this procedure, you must be delegated Exchange Server Administrator role permissions.

We recommend that you carefully consider the following before upgrading any clustered mailbox servers to Exchange 2007 SP1 or later:

  • Upgrading a clustered mailbox server to Windows Server 2008   Exchange 2007 SP1 and later versions includes support for Windows Server 2008, including support for clustered mailbox servers running on Windows Server 2008. However, as a result of the significant changes introduced in Windows Server 2008 failover clusters (called server clusters in previous versions of Microsoft Windows), rolling upgrades of a failover cluster from Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2008 are not possible. Therefore, to upgrade a clustered mailbox server from Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2008, you must build a new failover cluster using Windows Server 2008 as the operating system for all nodes, and then migrate the data from the old cluster to the new cluster. You can use the Move Mailbox wizard or the Move-Mailbox cmdlet to move mailboxes from the old cluster to the new cluster, and you can use public folder replication to move any public folder data from the old cluster to the new cluster. For more information about migrating mailbox data, see Moving Mailboxes. For more information about migrating public folder data, see How to Move Public Folder Content from one Public Folder Database to Another Public Folder Database.

  • Meeting cluster prerequisites   Before you can upgrade to Exchange 2007 SP1 or later versions, the cluster nodes must be running Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2) or Windows Server 2008. For detailed instructions about how to upgrade a cluster to Windows Server 2003 SP2, see the Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 Installation and Deployment Guide.

  • Upgrading truly passive nodes   Only a passive node can be upgraded to Exchange 2007 SP1 or later versions. In Exchange 2007, a passive node is a failover cluster node that does not contain a clustered mailbox server. We recommend that this node not contain any other cluster groups, including the default cluster group and other resource groups that are not Exchange related. These groups should be manually moved to another node (for example, the active node) before upgrading the passive node to Exchange 2007 SP1 or later. Use the following command from the command line to move the default cluster group to another node:

    Cluster.exe group "Cluster Group" /move:<NodeName>

  • Performing the Exchange 2007 SP1 or SP2 upgrade procedure   A clustered mailbox server can be upgraded to Exchange 2007 SP1 or later versions only by using the command-line version of Setup (Setup.com). You can't use the graphical user interface (GUI) version of Setup (also known as the Exchange Server 2007 Setup wizard or Setup.exe) to upgrade an existing clustered mailbox server to Exchange 2007 SP1 or later versions. The Exchange Server 2007 Setup wizard can only be used to create a new clustered mailbox server.

  • Planning for downtime during the Exchange 2007 SP1 and SP2 upgrade procedure   Exchange 2007 supports rolling upgrades of a clustered mailbox server from Exchange 2007 RTM to Exchange 2007 SP1 or later versions. However, these upgrades will involve some downtime for the clustered mailbox server. The amount of downtime will vary based on how long it takes each organization to perform the upgrade procedure for the entire cluster. The downtime begins in the middle of the procedure. The procedure is performed as follows:

    1. Upgrade the passive nodes first. Cluster continuous replication (CCR) environments always contain a single passive node, but single copy cluster (SCC) environments can contain several passive nodes. During the upgrade of the passive nodes, the clustered mailbox server can remain online and available to clients.

    2. After all passive nodes have been upgraded to Exchange 2007 SP1 or later, the clustered mailbox server must be taken offline and moved from the active node to an upgraded passive node in the cluster.

    3. Next, the original active node (now a passive node) is upgraded to Exchange 2007 SP1 or later.

    Note

    After the first passive node has been upgraded to Exchange 2007 SP1 or later, the clustered mailbox server can be upgraded, and then brought online on the upgraded passive node, thereby making it an active node.

  • Removing update rollups and Exchange 2007 SP1 and SP2   When you install Exchange 2007 SP1 or later on a computer that has one or more update rollups for Exchange 2007 installed, the update rollups will be automatically removed by Exchange 2007 Setup before SP1 or later is installed on the system. You do not need to manually remove any update rollups before installing Exchange 2007 SP1 or later.

For detailed steps about how to upgrade a clustered mailbox server to Exchange 2007 SP1 or later, see the following topics:

Managing Clustered Mailbox Servers Running Exchange 2007 RTM, Exchange 2007 SP1, or Exchange 2007 SP2

You can use the Exchange 2007 RTM version of the Exchange management tools (the Exchange Management Console and the Exchange Management Shell) to manage clustered mailbox servers running Exchange 2007 RTM from a computer running Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP.

You can use the Exchange 2007 SP1 or later version of the Exchange management tools to manage clustered mailbox servers running Exchange 2007 SP1 or later from a computer running Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, or Windows XP. Remote management of clustered mailbox servers using Windows Vista is currently not possible. Remote management from Windows Vista may be possible in a forthcoming Administration Tools Pack for Windows Vista. You can manage stand-alone computers running Exchange 2007 SP1 or later from Windows Vista.

Because the Cluster service does not allow you to use the cluster management tools for remote administration of failover clusters across different operating systems, you can't use the Exchange management tools for remote administration of failover clusters across different operating systems. For example, you cannot:

  • Manage a clustered mailbox server running on Windows Server 2008 from a computer running Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP.

  • Manage a clustered mailbox server running on Windows Server 2003 from a computer running Windows Server 2008.

In addition to the preceding restrictions, you cannot install different operating system versions of the cluster management tools on the same computer. Thus, if you are running multiple client and server operating systems in your Exchange environment, you may need to use alternate methods, such as the Remote Desktop Protocol tools, to manage some or all of your Exchange servers. The cluster management tools can be installed by installing the appropriate version of the Administration Tools Pack (Adminpak.msi) on Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP. For information about Adminpak.msi for Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP, see Microsoft Knowledge Base article 304718, How to use the Administration Tools Pack to remotely administer computers that are running Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, or Windows 2000.

To install the Failover Cluster Management tools on Windows Server 2008, open a Command Prompt window and run the following command

ServerManagerCmd -I RSAT-Clustering

For More Information

For more information about the high availability features in Windows Server 2008 that are supported by Exchange 2007 SP1 and later versions, see New High Availability Features in Exchange 2007 SP1.

For more information about the migration process from a Windows Server 2003 server cluster to a Windows Server 2008 failover cluster, see "Understanding the Migration Process from a Cluster Running Windows Server 2003" in the Failover Cluster section of the Windows Server 2008 product documentation.

Windows Server 2008 includes several features that have been enhanced or renamed. For more information about the feature changes between Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2003, see Terminology Changes.