Bridgehead Server

Microsoft Exchange Hub Transport Role

The hub transport server role handles all e-mail flow inside the organisation, applies journaling policies, and delivers messages to the recipient’s mailbox. This role is similar to the bridgehead server in an Exchange 2000/2003 organisation. In fact it originally was called the Bridgehead Role until it was changed. The Hub server must be deployed in every Active Directory site that contains other Exchange server 2007 roles.

The Hub Transport server role stores all its configuration information in Active Directory. This information includes (as mentioned above) transport rules settings, journal rule settings, and connector configurations. Because this information is stored in Active Directory, you can configure settings one time, and then those settings are applied by every Hub Transport server in the organization.You can install the Hub Transport server role on the same hardware with any other non-clustered internal server role or on a server that is dedicated to the Hub Transport server role. You must deploy a Hub Transport server role in each Active Directory site that contains a Mailbox server role. Deploying more than one Hub Transport server per site provides redundancy if a server fails. When you install more than one Hub Transport server in an Active Directory site, the connections are distributed.The Hub Transport server, as well as the rest of the server roles, is installed on member server(s) in an Active Directory domain. There is no need for ADAM on this, or any other role aside from the Edge Transport. Because it is a member of an AD domain, all its configuration information is stored in AD and any other Hub Transport servers you install will get their configuration from AD.

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Mailbox, Client Access, Unified Message and Hub Transport can be installed in any combination on one physical server. This combined topology is well-suited for small and medium size customers. Alternately, administrators can segment these roles across multiple servers, potentially located in different domains and sites to support a large number of users or meet geographical deployment requirements. Note that if Mailbox role is installed on different physical server from Hub Transport and Client Access role, the Mailbox server will need to have at least one Hub Transport and Client Access server available in the Mailbox server’s AD site.Microsoft actually recommends that you do not backup hub transport servers in the traditional manner. This is primarily because of the transient nature of the messaging queues. Suppose for a moment that you made a backup of the hub transport server, and 15 minutes later the server failed catastrophically. It wouldn’t really do you any good to restore the database used by the message queues, because all of the messages that were in the queues at the time that the backup was made would have already been delivered.Not only is it not necessary to backup the message queues, you really don’t have to worry about backing up the server’s configuration either. The vast majority of the configuration information is stored in Active Directory.

Build numbers and release dates for Exchange Server

How to tell what Exchange version you are using? Many of us know of course but Microsoft have build numbers to indentify exact builds.

To find your build: The easiest way is to open ESM>Administrative Groups>Domain Name>click on the servers folder and to the right you will see all your servers and under Server Version is the version type. Make sure you are running the latest service pack for the version you are using.

Version                                             Build number              Release date
———————————————————————————————-
Microsoft Exchange Server  4.0                      4.0.837                   April 1996
Microsoft Exchange Server  4.0 (a)                4.0.993                   August 1996
Microsoft Exchange Server  4.0 SP1               4.0.838                   May 1996
Microsoft Exchange Server  4.0 SP2               4.0.993                   August 1996
Microsoft Exchange Server  4.0 SP3               4.0.994                   November 1996
Microsoft Exchange Server  4.0 SP4               4.0.995                   April 1997
Microsoft Exchange Server  4.0 SP5               4.0.996                   May 1998

Microsoft Exchange Server  5.0                       5.0.1457                  March 1997
Microsoft Exchange Server  5.0 SP1                5.0.1458                  June 1997
Microsoft Exchange Server  5.0 SP2                5.0.1460                  February 1998

Microsoft Exchange Server  5.5                        5.5.1960                  November 1997
Microsoft Exchange Server  5.5 SP1                 5.5.2232                  July 1998
Microsoft Exchange Server  5.5 SP2                 5.5.2448                  December 1998
Microsoft Exchange Server  5.5 SP3                 5.5.2650                  September 1999
Microsoft Exchange Server  5.5 SP4                 5.5.2653                  November 2000

Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server                      6.0.4417                  October 2000
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server (a)                 6.0.4417                  January 2001
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server SP1                6.0.4712                  July 2001
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server SP2                6.0.5762                  December 2001
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server SP3                6.0.6249                  August 2002
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server post-SP3       6.0.6487                  September 2003
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server post-SP3       6.0.6556                  April 2004
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server post-SP3       6.0.6603                  August 2004

Microsoft Exchange Server  2003                        6.5.6944                  October 2003
Microsoft Exchange Server  2003 SP1                6.5.7226                  May 2004
Microsoft Exchange Server  2003 SP2                6.5.7638                  October 2005

Microsoft Exchange Server  2007                        8.0.685.24 or 8.0.685.25  December 2006
Microsoft Exchange Server  2007 SP1                8.1.0240.006              November 2007

Uninstall Exchange Server 2003

Firstly I need to apologize for the delay between posts, I have been attending to some business which kept me away and will acknowledge next time should I expect a large gap again.I’m going to get straight into the correct way to uninstall Exchange 2003 from a server. I have a systems Administrator who has this task in hand and I’ve done this for him and others.
Let’s do it!

You must ensure you meet the prerequisites before you attempt this and they are as follows:

• If you have Exchange Full Administrator permissions at the administrative group level, you can uninstall Exchange Server 2003, provided that you have permissions for the administrative group to which the server belongs.

• If there are any mailboxes assigned to a storage group on a server, you cannot uninstall Exchange Server 2003 from that server. In this case, you must either move or delete the mailboxes before you can uninstall Exchange.

• You cannot uninstall Exchange Server 2003 from a server if it is the only server in your organization running the Recipient Update Service. Instead, you must first use Exchange System Manager to enable the Recipient Update Service on another server.

• You cannot uninstall Exchange Server 2003 from a server if it is the only server in a mixed administrative group that is running Site Replication Service (SRS). Instead, you must first enable SRS on another Exchange server.

• You cannot uninstall Exchange Server 2003 from a server if it is a bridgehead server for a connector and there are other Exchange servers in your organization. Instead, you must first designate a new bridgehead server.

• You cannot uninstall Exchange Server 2003 from a server if it is the routing master and there are other Exchange servers in your organization. Instead, you must first designate a new routing master.

Now before you remove the server from a production environment that has multiple servers in the administrative group, understand that you need to know all the servers roles that are held by this machine. Make sure you move your roles to other machines. Example: If the server is listed as a bridgehead server on a connector you will have to move this before uninstall will work. Failure to do this could cause many things including the following:

• Mail flow may stop if the server is a bridgehead server.

• Mail flow will be totally screwed if the server is the routing group master.

• Outlook issue and OWA issues so confirm and check before attempting the uninstall.

Before you remove Exchange 2003, you must disconnect all mailbox-enabled users from the mailboxes on the Exchange server. It is not possible to remove an Exchange Server when it has mounted mailboxes. If you are getting this error check out the following “One or more users currently use this mailbox store. These users must be moved to a different mailbox store or be mail disabled before deleting this store”A good way to try to find these missing users is to use Active Directory Users and Computers. Here’s what to do:

1. Run ADUC.(Active Directory Users and computers – come on!)

2. Right-click your domain at the top, and choose Find.

3. Click the Advanced tab, and then choose User from the Field button.

4. From the list of attributes displayed, choose Exchange Home Server.

5. Set the Condition field to Ends With and then type your Exchange server name into the Value field. Click Add to add this value.

6. Now click the Find button, and hopefully you’ll see the troublesome user listed in the results window.

You should then be able to remove the Exchange attributes from these user accounts and proceed with the un install.

To uninstall Exchange Server 2003

1. Log on to the server from which you want to uninstall Exchange.
2. Click Start, point to Control Panel, and then click Add or Remove Programs.
3. In Add or Remove Programs, select Microsoft Exchange, and then click Change/Remove.
4. On the Welcome to the Microsoft Exchange Installation Wizard page, click Next.
5. On the Component Selection page, in the Action column, use the drop-down arrows to select Remove, and then click Next.

Follow the bouncing ball and Exchange should uninstall.