Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 : Managing Connectivity with Hub Transport Servers - Send and Receive Connectors (part 3)

3. Connectivity to Exchange 2003

When you install Exchange 2010 in an existing Exchange 2003 organization, to allow coexistence and facilitate routing, Setup creates an administrative group, a routing group, and a Windows security group for backward compatibility. (In a native Exchange 2007/2010 organization, routing group connectors are not used. They are necessary only when interoperating with Exchange 2000/2003.) These groups are as follows:

• Setup creates an administrative group for the Exchange 2010 servers to be housed in. This administrative group is called Exchange Administrative Group (FYDIBOHF23SPDLT). All Exchange 2010 servers will be in this administrative group; do not move them out of this administrative group.

• Setup creates a routing group called Exchange Routing Group (DWBGZMFD01QNBJR). All Exchange 2010 servers will be in this routing group and you must not move them out of this routing group.

• Setup creates an Active Directory universal security group called ExchangeLegacyInterop. The ExchangeLegacyInterop group has permissions that allow Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2010 servers to send messages between each other.

The new administrative and routing groups are not visible within the Exchange 2010 Management Console, but you can see them using the Exchange 2000/2003 System Manager console or ADSIEdit (see Figure 5).

If you are installing Exchange Server 2010 into an existing Exchange 2000/2003 environment, during the installation of the first Exchange 2010 Hub Transport server role, you are prompted for an Exchange 2000/2003 server to use as a bridgehead. The Setup program will create a routing group connector from the Exchange Routing Group (DWBGZMFD01QNBJR) routing group to the specified server in the remote routing group.

Only the first Hub Transport server is set up as a bridgehead server to Exchange Server 2003; you must use the Set-RoutingGroupConnector cmdlet to add additional bridgeheads.

For example, say an organization has two routing groups: the New York routing group and the San Francisco routing group. Each routing group has two Exchange 2003 servers that function as bridgehead servers for the routing group connector that connects the New York and San Francisco routing groups, as illustrated in Figure 6.

When the first Exchange 2010 server is installed, the Exchange Routing Group (DWBGZMFD01QNBJR) is created and the Setup program prompts the installer for a remote Exchange 2003 server to use as a bridgehead. In this example, we're choosing one of the servers in the San Francisco routing group.

The Setup program creates a routing group connector from the Exchange 2010 routing group to the San Francisco routing group. A single local bridgehead and a single remote bridgehead are defined. An identical routing group connector is created from the San Francisco routing group to the Exchange 2010 routing group. Figure 7 shows the properties of one of these routing group connectors using the Exchange 2003 System Manager console.

Figure 5. Viewing the Exchange 2010 administrative and routing groups

Figure 6. Message routing between Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2010

Figure 7. Properties of a routing group connector as viewed from Exchange 2003 System Manager

If you have multiple routing groups and multiple bridgehead servers, you will want to correct a couple of issues. First, there is no redundancy between the Exchange 2003 servers and the Exchange 2010 servers. If either the Hub Transport server or the Exchange 2003 bridgehead server that is being used for the routing group connector fails, messaging between the Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2010 mailboxes will halt.

Second, you will want to verify that all messages from New York to the Exchange 2010 Mailbox servers (and vice versa) will be sent through the San Francisco Exchange 2003 bridgehead servers.

Routing group connectors between Exchange 2010 and Exchange 2003 cannot be modified using the Exchange 2000/2003 System Manager console or the Exchange 2010 Exchange Management Console. Therefore, you need to correct both of these issues using the Exchange Management Shell and the routing group cmdlets. Table 1 lists the most useful cmdlets for managing routing groups between Exchange 2000/2003 and Exchange 2010.

Because this is all done from the EMS, let's start with some basics. Here is an example of using the Get-RoutingGroupConnector with no parameters to retrieve a list of the routing group connectors:

Get-RoutingGroupConnector
Name                  SourceRoutingGroup         TargetRoutingGroup
----                  ------------------         ------------------
Ex2010 to Exc 2003    Exchange Routing Group...    First Routing Group
Exc 2003 to EX2010    First Routing Group        Exchange Routing Group

The SourceRoutingGroup and TargetRoutingGroup columns have been truncated to fit better into the page in case you were wondering where the full name of the Exchange 2010 routing group is. Here is an example of retrieving all the properties:

Get-RoutingGroupConnector "Exc2003toEX2010" | FL

TargetRoutingGroup           : Exchange Routing Group (DWBGZMFD01QNBJR)
Cost                         : 1
TargetTransportServers       : {EX2010}
ExchangeLegacyDN             : /o=SnowboardingServers/ou=First
Administrative Group/cn=Configuration/cn=Connections/cn= Exc2003toEX2010
PublicFolderReferralsEnabled : True
SourceRoutingGroup           : First Routing Group
SourceTransportServers       : {EXC2003}
HomeMTA                      : Microsoft MTA
HomeMtaServerId              : EXC2003
MinAdminVersion              : -2147453113
AdminDisplayName             :
ExchangeVersion              : 0.1 (8.0.535.0)
Name                         : Exc 2003 to EX2010
DistinguishedName            : CN= Exc 2003 to EX2010,
CN=Connections,CN=First Routing Group,CN=Routing
Groups,CN=First Administrative Group,CN=Administrative
Groups,CN=SnowboardingServers,CN=Microsoft
Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=volcanosurfboards,DC=com
Identity                     : Exc 2003 to EX2010
Guid: 4445126d-f275-4f5e-9934-d0048591a59a
ObjectCategory               :
Snowboardingservers.com/Configuration/Schema/
ms-Exch-Routing-Group-Connector
ObjectClass                  :
{top, msExchConnector, msExchRoutingGroupConnector}
WhenChanged                  : 11/19/2009 6:38:35 PM
WhenCreated                  : 11/19/2009 6:38:35 PM
OriginatingServer            : Exc2003.Snowboardingservers.com
IsValid                      : True

					  

If you wanted to add another Hub Transport server as an additional target bridgehead server, you would use the Set-RoutingGroupConnector cmdlet. But this is going to be a bit tricky because the display names of the routing group connectors are identical. You need to retrieve just the connector that connects from the Exchange 2003 routing group to the Exchange 2010 routing group.