email article printer friendly get the code more resources

Add a Conference Server to an Exchange 5.5 Org
Take advantage of Exchange 2000 Conference Server while you plan your full-blown Exchange 2000 and Active Directory project.
by Steve Bryant

September 2002 Issue

For this solution: Exchange 2000 Server, Exchange 2000 Conference Server, Exchange 5.5

In this article, I'll show you how your Exchange 5.5 shop can start using Conference Server, even if you're still only planning your Exchange 2000 and Active Directory (AD) migration projects. I'll explain how to build an "island" of one or two servers that use trusts and contacts to host the conferencing environment. You can remove the Conference Server island after you've migrated to Exchange 2000 and AD.

The first step is to give the island's organization a domain name system (DNS) name. Consider two questions in this decision: (1) Will you provide conferencing resources to attendees on your wide-access network (WAN) only (not the Internet)? (2) Do you have control of your internal DNS for referrals or can you create new DNS zones? If you answer no to either question, you might need to register a new domain for your Conferencing AD (for example, Conference-Company.com) or create a subzone for your company (for example, conference.company.com). In the example implementation in this article, I assume you'll use the conferencing resources for internal attendees only and can add new zones to your DNS servers. The example domain's fictitious DNS name is Conference.INT.

To build the server, you install and set up a domain controller, then set up DNS. Begin by installing Windows 2000 Server on a computer; include the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), the Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP), DNS Server, and the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) Server. I recommend highly you also install the support tools from the \SUPPORT\TOOLS directory on your installation CD. Next, promote the domain to AD and make "conference" its NetBIOS domain name. Allow the setup program to create and install DNS on its own, then apply Windows 2000 Service Pack 2 (SP2). The next step is to establish a two-way trust between your existing domain(s) and your new AD domain (see Figure 1 and Resources).

Figure 1 Establish Trust

Now you have the basic environment you need, but no relationship exists between your production systems and the new AD. You have two choices for connecting them. The widely accepted method entails running in a mixed mode (see Resources). Under this approach, you create the island and install the Active Directory Connector (ADC) to connect the Exchange 5.5 environment with the AD. This is probably the best option for small organizations. For large companies with many sites and locations, it might involve considerable planning, equipment, and networking costs because you need to establish Connection Agreements (CAs) for each site in the Exchange 5.5 org.

Create Shadow Accounts
This article's example solution uses a method of connecting the systems that provides most of the functionality of the mixed-mode option and requires no ADC work. Users must have mailboxes in the Exchange 2000 environment to use the conferencing server for booking appointments and inviting others. You're not prepared to move all your users to Exchange 2000, so instead you'll create "shadow" entries in the AD that match their NT4 domain accounts perfectly. (Passwords don't have to match in this case.) The users' SMTP addresses must also match for them to receive invitations.

Install Exchange 2000 and accept the default choices for site and org name. Next, apply Exchange 2000 SP2. You've now installed and configured your island's AD and Exchange organization. Last, install Exchange 2000 Conference Server, then apply Exchange 2000 Conference Server SP2.