Running Exchange 2007 across 2 AD forests
I was at the TechNet roadshow in Manchester (and heck was it COLD!). It was great to see so many people, chat about my recent diving holiday. Talking Nitrogen tissue saturation always makes me wistful :-)
I answered a few Exchange questions too, strange really as We weren't talking about Exchange, or the fact that SP1 has been announced (thanks Ewan for getting the information out and thanks to the Exchange team for telling us what's going on inside the ESE too)
So as I was busy I didn't get a chance to chat to Andrew about his multi forest problem which was a shame really. Anyway he mailed me this morning with his question.
I was at Manchester yesterday, for the daytime sessions, but didn't get chance to speak to you. Great sessions with good demos(maybe Steve and James could give up working for Microsoft and form a double act). I was a bit disappointed that I had to buy my own lunch, but it's a small price to pay, anyway I have a question..
..I work for the Council, we have just started implementing Exchange 2007. We have setup our AD and we are bringing in users one directorate at a time, everything is going fine. But, we will hit a problem in the future when we come to the last directorate on the list. The last directorate already has their own AD forest, currently most of the Council is still running Novell/Groupwise, so in the past this has not been a problem, but now we have our own AD forest bringing them into our Exchange system is not going to be straight forward. Is this a well trodden path, can you offer any advise regarding the right/easiest way of bringing them into our Exchange system. Bearing in mind that we don't want to bring them into our AD unless we really, really, really have to.
Well... we get asked this type of question often, and the answer is quite simple. You can leave these other users where they are in the different forest and hook the 2 forests together - or you can use the resource forest approach.
But now I'm curious Andrew. your comment saying "unless we really, really, really have to" is a lot of reallys - and raised loads more questions. We must get together next time we're in Manchester and you can tell me why.
And I'll buy your lunch...
