2000 users – new mailboxes – one weekend – DONE!

Well, we did it! We implemented new mailboxes on Microsoft Exchange 2007 for over 2000 users in one weekend. Of course it took lots of planning, testing and blood, sweat, tears during the process, but we are now on one e-mail platform where there were at least 5 before. We had more domains than we needed and now the company is on one domain. We had to plan and provide for inbound messages still to the old domains.

The implementation was not without a couple of minor glitches and learning how users use the application. One glitch was a mistyped IP address. This prevented e-mail flow for a short period of time, however that is not a huge issue since SMTP servers will continue to retry sending messages. Another issue that was encountered was administrative rights to “shared” mailboxes like customer service or supply buyers.  This has now been resolved and users are getting full use from the system.

We still have some work to be done on things like:

• proactive system monitoring to detect issues before the users do;
• alternatives to sending large attachments (our attachment limit is 15MB);
• running Outlook Anywhere so a mobile user can attach to their mailbox without having to use VPN;
• supporting mobile devices like smartphones (our focus is on Windows Mobile v6 and up);
• user certificates using private PKI to allow for digital signatures and encryption.

So, as you see, work in IT never finishes… it just continues to grow as more services and systems are implemented and change happens. Please feel free to leave a comment if you would like more information about our implementation process and decisions we made along the way.

Thanks for your time. Let’s be good network citizens together & practice safe networking!