Hareware and Software Requirements for Installing MS Exchange Server 2007

There are some requirements for MS Exchange Server 2007 in order to be installed successfully. Without these prerequisites and requirements the installation will not continue. These requirements were covered in my previous article, but now I will brief these requirements again for the people who didn’t get the change to check my previous blog articles:

1. Hardware Requirements

Processor:

• Intel Extended Memory 64 Technology (Intel EM64T). or
• AMD Opteron or AMD Athlon 64 processor, which supports AMD64 platform.

Memory:

• 2GB of RAM per server plus 5MB per user minimum

Disk space:

• At least 1.2GB on the hard disk where Exchange Server 2007 will be installed.
• 200MB on the system drive
  

Paging file size:

• Page File Size should be equal to the amount of RAM in the Server plus 10 MB
  

Note:

• That Inter Itanium IA64 Processors are NOT SUPPORTED.
• These hardware requirements from Microsoft are the bare minimum and should not be used in best-practice scenarios. In addition, hardware requirements can change because of features and functionality required by the company, for example, the implementation of Unified Messaging voice mail services or clustering on an Exchange 2007 server can require more memory.
  
  2. Infrastructure Requirements
  
  · The Schema Master Domain Controller must have Windows Server 2003 SP 1 or Windows Server 2003 R2 Installed.
  · Global Catalog Server used by Exchange Server 2007 must be running Windows Server 2003 SP 1 or Windows Server 2003 R2 Installed.
  · Active Directory Domain Functional Level must be Windows 2000 Native or higher for all domains in the Active Directory Forest where you will install Exchange Server 2007 or have mailbox-enabled users.
  · Forest Functional Level must be Windows Server 2003 Functional Level.
  · If you are deploying MS Exchange 2007 on an Active Directory Forest that already contains Exchange Organization (2000 or 2003), then this Exchange Organization must be in Native Mode which means “No Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 Servers” should exists under this Exchange Organization.
  · Domain Name System (DNS) is configured correctly in the Active Directory Forest.
  · Active Directory is prepared for the Exchange Server 2007.
  · WINS is not required anymore for Exchange Server 2007 Installation, operation and management.
  · All Exchange Server 2007 which will deployed under Active Directory Forest needs to be member “Joined” of this Active Directory Forest, so Hub Transport, Client Access, Mailbox, and Unified Messaging (UM) Servers needs to be running on Member Servers. Well these roles can run on Domain Controllers, but its not recommended at all. The only exception to this condition is the Exchange Server 2007 – Edge Transport Server Role, this server role CAN NOT run on Server which is joined to Active Directory Forest. This server role was designed to work on a Stand Alone Server located in the DMZ Area (This server will act as SMTP Gateway Server for all Internet-Facing Email Connections from the external world).
  
  3. System Requirements
  
  Exchange 2007 has the following System Requirements which needs to be installed on the server that will run any Exchange Server 2007 Roles:
  
  · Windows Server 2003 – 64-Bit (or Windows Server 2003 R2 – 64-Bit) as Operating System.
  · .Net Framework 2.0
  · Microsoft Management Console (MMC) v 3.0
  · Microsoft PowerShell v 1.0.
  · Windows Security Updates.
  
  For each and every Exchange Server 2007 which will be deployed under the Production network, all the above software and updates must be installed prior to install Exchange Server 2007. You will not be able to proceed with Exchange Server 2007 Installation on any server if one of the system requirements was not installed.