Procedures followed in the creation of my first Virtual Server
- Installed Virtual Server Sofware.
Host Server is the Domain's PDC, running IIS 6, WSS 3.0, SQL Server 2000
Virtual Server 2005 R2 on Windows 2003 Sp1 Enterprise PDC
- Created First Virtual Server
- Installed VS OS (Windows 2003 Ent.)
- Server Roles Created
- Application Server, IIS, ASP.Net (no FP Extensions)
- Windows Update (Windows Installer updated)
- Download and installed Win2003 Service Pack 1
- Download and installed 56 updates and/or security patches.
Note: The Virtual Server is very Fast; faster than the Host Server.
- Installed Active Directory (Virtual Server as additional server)
- Two more updates. (see list below by Lamont Harrington)
- Install SQL Server 2000 sp3a
- Install Dotnetfx
- Add SMTP and NNTP for Server 2003
- Install Exchange Server 2003 Enterprise
- Install Exchange Sp3 and Windows Updates
- Move Exchange Mail Boxes
The problem after this was, once the old Exc Server was turned off, the Virtual server took forever to boot (name server errors in log file) and exchange services wouldn't start. So I followed the documents in step 17 to decommission the old Exchange Server.
- Removing the First Exchange Server
- Stop Exchange Services on First Server for 1 Week, before decommissioning the old server.
- The new Virtual Server is running Exchange and that works ok, but I haven't turned the old Exchange server OFF. That will be the real test.
Exchange Sharepoint Integration
Here is a procedures list I found on a Blog by Lamont Harrington. It explains how to install Exchange Server and Sharepoint Server on the same DC. This document caused me to alter my procedures after Step 10 above.
- Install Windows Server 2003 (Standard or Enterprise)
- Promote virtual machine image to a domain controller using dcpromo or the “Manage Your Server” utility
- Install IIS and associated tools (including the SMTP and NNTP services which are required for Exchange)
- Apply Windows Update (not required, but generally good practice)
- Install SQL Server 2000 w/ Service Pack 3a
- Apply post SQL 2000 Service Pack 3a security hotfixes (optional, but again good practice)
- Install Windows Component Update and Visual Studio.NET 2003
- Install MSDN Library (optional)
- Install Visual SourceSafe (optional)
- Install Office System 2003 (optional, but always good to have installed, especially if your during some integrated Office development)
- Install Exchange Server 2003
- Install SharePoint Server 2003
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