Question for anyone familiar with Exhange Server

[npish]

I would like to migrate my organization's primary website to a different hosting provider, which is a straight-forward process, however we also have an exchange server that handles mail for this domain. Our domain registrar is Network Solutions and our DNS appears to be handled by our current hosting provider (XO Communications). For our website, I realize I merely need to change the naming servers to point to the new hosting provider-- which I'm assuming I'd do via Network Solutions-- however, I'm unclear as to the way our exchange server needs to be handled in this transition.

In the DNS zonefile at XO, I can see two entries listed under "MX Record (Mail Exchange)"-- i.e. one listing "mail.ourdomain.com" and another for "mailhost.xo-hosting.com." If I change the name servers listed in the Network Solutions control panel to those for our new hosting provider, I'm assuming I also need to change the server name listed in the MX record at XO? Or do I actually need to migrate the DNS management altogether to the new hosting provider? Finally, what modifications do I need to make to the Exchange server itself?

Thanks for any assistance here; I've dealt with migrating websites many times but never with the mail server component...

[RealBlackStuff]

The logical thing would perhaps be to either check with M$ or RTFM.
But try this: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/libr ... 65%29.aspx

[npish]

thanks for the link RealBlackStuff-- was mostly wondering if someone had dealt with this issue before; my knowledge of dealing with mail servers is pretty minimal...

[Temetka]

Are you hosting exchange on site? If so, do nothing you should be fine.

If it's hosted off site, call the host and find out what info they need.

You'll probably have to put in a PTR record for your Exchange IP Address.

[npish]

Thanks for the response, Temetka; we do indeed host the exchange server on site. I was wondering if in fact nothing would need to be done on the Exchange side, given that DNS will resolve "domain.com" and therefore Exchange would be unaffected by a move to a different web hosting provider and/or DNS configuration...

[Temetka]

Thanks for the response, Temetka; we do indeed host the exchange server on site. I was wondering if in fact nothing would need to be done on the Exchange side, given that DNS will resolve "domain.com" and therefore Exchange would be unaffected by a move to a different web hosting provider and/or DNS configuration...

Ok think about it like this:

mail.domain.com will point to the IP address of your Exchange server

http://www.domain.com will point to the IP of the host

DNS will resolve to either mail.domain or http://www.domain. That's what it's job is. It's not just one giant domain. So if you are trying to talk to the mail server, DNS will understand that and forward packets there. Same for WWW.

You might have to do some fiddling with the A record for the domain, but you host can walk you through this.

The easiest way, and what I have done in the past when moving a site hosted web page to the cloud is to call the new host, explain your setup to them and they will tell you what needs to happen.

If you have SSL certs for both E-mail and WWW the IP's in those certs may need to be updated. On the IIS Server for your Exchange server (assuming you are also running OWA) there is a wizard that can walk you through this. Typically you just run the cert wizard and tell it to generate a new request and that will be uploaded to your cert authority and they will e-mail or let you download the updated cert to install on your server. Most companies that issue SSL certs will have a page with some walk through instructions for you. Failing that or if you run into a problem, just give them a call and you should be good to go.