Additionally; I just read that you cannot just deploy a server with the mailbox server role in a 2003 Exchange organisation but you need a 2010 CAS server as well. Can someone confirm this? At least we could install them on one machine, so I don't think this is much an issue?!

Olafski72 How many users do you have? Looks like you have some issues with your Exchange 2003 infrastructure and you want to know if Exchange 2010 infrastructure can fix your current issues? Well in this case you need to design & deploy Exchange 2010 infrastructure, and with that you need CAS, HUB and MB roles. You can install CAS/HUB/MB roles in 1 server. This is a good link for Planning and Deployment Exchange 2010 It looks like you have never designed & deployed Exchange 2010 so you have 2 options. 1st option is to get books about it and understand it. 2nd option is to get an Exchange consultant who has done Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010 many times and help you out here. Fred Chamanara | Advanced Agile Technology LLC | Hire us | please mark "Propose As Answer" if this post helped.

Hi,Olafski72, Yes,you cannot only have Exchange 2010 Mailbox server but also should deploy Hub Server and CAS server,however you can install these server roles on single Exchange server as Fred said. Here is the Microsoft Deployment guide about Installing Exchange 2010 in an existing Exchange 2003 orgnization http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd638130.aspx And if you would like to upgrade from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010,below is a step-by-step guide for your reference. http://www.simple-talk.com/sysadmin/exchange/upgrade-exchange-2003-to-exchange-2010/ Regards, SharonSharon Shen TechNet Community Support ************************************************************************************************************************ Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question.

Thanks for your replies; Fred, we have like 1500 users. We do not have a real issue with our infrastructure but I think it is just a bit outdated and the Free/Busy is just not optimal if you look at the speed. We are in the middle of designing a new infrastructure for Exchange 2010 and we are planning to migrate between now and January. In the meanwhile, I thought of adding a mailbox server just to see if it increases speed for the free/busy part, so move all meeting room accounts to it. I did the training 10135A and have some books, but I rather hear it practival advice, that is why I have posted this. Furthermore, I am more an administrator and not an architect, so for me this is quite new. We now have two 2003 front end servers and two barracudas(in a permiter network but is part of the AD). We have two back end servers in NL, two in Germany and one in France. I want to centralise all of the backend servers to NL. In the training course they told me to OR get rid of the 2 Barracudas and replace the front ends with Exchange 2010 and let them do the spamfiltering, or leave the Barracudas and get rid of the two front end servers and let the Barracudas deliver the mail directly to the new backend 2010 CAS/HUB servers. Sharon, I will look at these links and see whether how easy it is, and what the risks are to just add a Exchange 2010 CAS/Hub/Mailbox server to the existing 2003 organisation. Thanks! Regards, Olaf

Olaf You have an Exchange Enterprise environment of 1500 users so this will be an important Exchange 2010 infrastructure project for you. I would leave the Barracudas, and you need to consider DAG and HA for CAS & HUB. The links I posted & Sharon posted will get you started. Again if you are not sure of all the pieces get an Exchange consultant. You do not want to start something in production and start breaking things. Fred Chamanara | Advanced Agile Technology LLC | Hire us | please mark "Propose As Answer" if this post helped.

We have a 2003 domain, 2003 Exchange Server and Office 2010. Since we have upgraded to Office 2010, the resource scheduling in Outlook is very slow. When you retrieve a calendar from a meeting room(actual another user?), it takes a long time before we see the appointments and the free/busy information. Also in the systray we sometimes see a message it is trying to connect to Exchange Server and this can take like 30 seconds. Because of that, and just out of curiousity, I would like to add a new Windows Server 2008 machine to our domain and install Exchange 2010 with the Mailbox role on it and move the resource mailboxes to it. Just to see whether this improves performance and to start implementing carefully Exchange Server 2010 to our organisation. Is this possible and what are the pitfalls? Thanks in advance!