Hello All,
I've been asked to plan, design and setup a small exchange server and I thought why not go for the latest one because two years down the line it will still be quite new. As I've not done any such deployment all alone before, I was scared and excited.
I started reading and after quite some basic reading thought to setup the lab first and see a demo. The lab itself has so many issues out of the box, I think shall I install Exch 2010 which seems to be much stable when comes out of the box. All the promises made by Exch 2013 seems to be a vague dream.
I simply don't understand even after following all the steps why EAC/ECP or sometimes EMS or sometimes the OWA doesn't work internally.
I setup a small lab in VMware Workstation, using 5 VM's - AD, 2 CAS, 2 MBX. All running Windows Server 2012 R2 & installed Exchange 2013 SP1. I later upgraded to CU5 as well to see if that fixes the virtual directories and other things. It didn't work as expected.
I can understand that configuring is a major part of exchange deployment but initial deployment should be robust not confusing. I found articles that after you prepare the exchange server with prerequisites, uninstall some Visual Basic c++ installer etc (KB I don't remember).
Is there anyone out there who has successfully installed Exchange 2013 SP1 on Windows Server 2012 R2?
TechNet articles only refer to Exchange 2013 deployment and upgrade.
1. Which is the stable & most suited Operating System - Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 with fully patched updates or Windows Server 2012 R2 with fully patched updates?
2. Which is the best Active Directory Model - hosted on Win 2008 R2 SP1 with Forest & Domain Functional Level up to the latest available or Win 2012 R2 with Forest & Domain Functional Level up to the latest available?
3. For another New Separate Small Internal deployment of Exchange I was planning to use Virtual Servers (for 50-100 Users). Which is the best solution - Hyper V on Windows Server 2012 R2 or VM's running on ESXi? Which solutions offers more options in terms of HA, Disaster Recovery etc & easy administration.
4. Now I'm planning to reformat all my servers & install Windows Server 2008 R2. Does this at least works fine with Exchange 2013 SP1.
5. Which is more stable - Exchange 2013 or Exchange 2013 SP1 or Exchange 2013 SP1 CU5?
6. What are the port requirements in Exchange 2013 & how to configure windows firewall to work well instead of disabling it.
If any appropriate guidance in the form of URL/Video or blog or whitepaper or deployed solution steps is shared I would highly appreciate. Thanks in advance.
PS: This is an urgent requirement so quick replies will be highly appreciated.
Thanks
Young Blood
Fahad