Exchange Exchange

Ok I started a new post due to I'm going to look at migrating from Exchange 2000 to Exchange 2007 a different way. I have a new Server that will have 2003 Server 64bit on it for Exchange 2007.  Now speaking to a friend over the weekend he said that it might be better instead of trying to move everything at the sametime that is mailbox's. He thought it would be better to install another machine with Exchange 2000 set it up as a SMTP Connector then load Exchange 2007 on my new Server and slowly move mailbox's over at a time. What is the best way to go about doing this like what do I call the SMTP Machine like the machine name and the domain name so forth.

 So for example my live server is called mail.bud.com and its a DC as well. So I need to make sure to keep the domain the same that way my users E-mail address are the same. 

My new server I had plan on called it email.bud.com  but what would a call the 3rd machine that I would setup as a SMTP Connector??

Any help would be much appreciated..  

After installing the Exchange 2007 server and testing functionality, you can move as many mailboxes as you are comfortable between the servers. If you encounter problems you can even migrate the users back to Exchange 2000. I would stick with your original plan, it is straightforward and you can do it at your own pace.

Well my original plan was to move all mailbox's at once over the weekend. If I do it this way I can move them a few at a time instead of trying to do it all at once which will take allot longer to do..

You don't need to change the original configuration to move a few mailboxes, you can just keep both servers up and running, they will route mail between them automatically.

1. Install new server make DC/GC

2. Install Exchange Server 2007 (extend schema,etc)

3. Configure Public folder replication, autodiscover, etc

4. Move test users to Exchange 2007

5. Move batch 1 of users to Exchange 2007

6. Move batch 2 of users to Exchange 2007 (at some time later, the following weekend etc)