I've got a customer that has a small Exchange 2007 setup. They've got about 25 users and everything is just on one server (small Dell PE 1950) that they keep in a colo facility. The only thing they use it for is mail.
They do a hardware refresh every four years and just purchased a Dell r610 and want me to migrate them to Exchange 2010.
For larger orgs I've done it the right way, but for this customer I had an idea and while it's likely crazy just wanted to see what everyone thought.
What if I built the new Exchange 2010 server exactly the same as their existing machine. Same domain, same hostname, same everything. I could migrate all the the existing AD user accounts and email addresses to the new box and load the same SSL cert. The over the weekend I could just power down the old machine and power on the new one. If everything (autodiscover, OWA, IP Addresses, etc.) was exactly the same would Outlook automatically connect to the new box?
Am I insane to think it might work?
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