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Exploring Lync Server 2010 - Part 15 - Creating the Exchange Sever 2010 Virtual Machine

Welcome to Part 15 of Exploring Microsoft Lync Server 2010.

In this part of the series, we will be creating a new Virtual Machine that will be used for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010.

But before we begin, there is something we need to take care of in Active Directory. Previously back in Part 12 we added 400 Users and Computers into Active Directory. These Users and Computers represent the employees and their computers in our organization.

However we also need to setup the new server machines that we are creating in Active Directory. So let’s setup a new OU for the server machines and then add a new computer to the OU for the Exchange Server Virtual Machine we will be setting up.

 On the MDCBASE01 machine, fire up Server Manager and connect to the MdcDc Virtual Machine as shown below

Start Server Manager on MdcDc and then navigate down to Minneapolis in our Active Directory structure as shown below

Right click on ‘Minneapolis’ and select New->Organizational Unit for the drop downs as shown below

On the resulting dialog, enter ‘Server Room’ as the name of the OU and then click the ‘Ok’ button as shown below

The end result is that we now have a new OU called ‘Server Room’ where all of our servers will live as shown below

The new Virtual Machine we will be creating for Exchange Server 2010 will be called ‘MdcExchange’ so we may as well add it into Active Directory now

Right click on ‘Server Room’ and select New->Computer as shown below

In the resulting dialog, enter ‘MdcExchange’ as the computer name and click the ‘Ok’ button as shown below

As you can see from the image below, we now have our soon to be created ‘MdcExchange’ machine setup in the ‘Server Room’ OU

Now let’s start building that new ‘MdcExchange’ Virtual Machine that will be used for our Exchange Server 2010 installation.

All of the following work should be performed on our base machine which is called MDCBASE01.

First off, fire up Windows Explorer and create a new folder under “C:\Virtual Machines\Production” called “MDC Exchange Server” as shown below

Next, start “Server Manager” and navigate to the “MDCBASE01” node under HyperV as shown below

Right click on the “MDCBASE01” node and select ‘New’ and then ‘Virtual Machine’ from the drop down menus as illustrated below

This will start the ‘New Virtual Machine Wizard’ as shown below

Click ‘Next’ and set the name of the Virtual Machine to be “MdcExchangeServer” and set the path to point to our recently created folder “C:\Virtual Machines\Production\Mdc Exchange Server” as shown below

Click ‘Next’ and on this screen, set the memory to 1024MB as shown below

Click ‘Next’ and select ‘MdcBase01VirtualNetwork’ from the Connection drop down so that our Virtual Machine will be connected to our network, as shown below

Click ‘Next’. On this screen, you want to select the ‘Attach a Virtual Hard Disk later’ radio button as shown below. We will be attaching the hard disk shortly.

Click ‘Next’ and you will be presented with the following summary screen.

Click ‘Finish’ and the new Virtual Machine will be created.  The next thing we want to do is to attach a hard drive to this newly created Virtual Machine. Using Windows Explorer, copy the SYSPREP’d hard drive located at

C:\Virtual Machines\Sysprepd Virtual Hard Drives\Windows Server 2008 R2\WindowsServer2008R2_SysPrepd.vhd’

to the folder located at C:\Virtual Machines\Production\Mdc Exchange Server\MdcExchangeServer  as shown below

Next, rename the copied hard drive to “WindowsServer2008R2_MdcExchangeServer.vhd” as shown below

Now that the hard drive is in the proper location, we can turn our attention to attaching it to the MdcExchangeServer Virtual Machine. In Server Manager, right click on the MdcExchangeServer Virtual Machine and select ‘Settings’ from the popup menu as shown below

In the settings dialog, select ‘IDE Controller 0’ from the left hand column and then select ‘Hard Drive’ in the right hand pane as shown below

Clicking the ‘Add’ button produces the following screen

Click on the ‘Browse’ button and select the hard drive located at

C:\Virtual Machines\Production\Mdc Exchange Server\MdcExchangeServer\ WindowsServer2008R2_MdcExchangeServer.vhd

 as shown below

Click ‘Ok’ and the proper hard drive will now be part of the MdcExchangeServer Virtual Machine.

Now that the Virtual Machine is complete, it is time to start it up.  Since the MdcExchangeServer Virtual Machine was created from our Master Virtual Machine image, we can expect to go through a Miniature Setup Routine as this is the first time that it will be started.

Using Server Manager, right click on ‘MdcExchangeServer’ Virtual Machine and select ‘Start’ from the popup menu as shown below

 

Right click on ‘MdcExchangeServer’ Virtual Machine a second time, and select ‘Connect’ from the popup menu to open a window into the Virtual Machine as shown below

 

You can move to full screen mode by entering CTRL_ALT_BREAK

You will see the following screen shots as the MdcExchangeServer Virtual Machine starts up

Once the MdcExchangeServer Virtual Machine reboots you will be presented with the following screen

Leave the default values as is, click ‘Next’ and you will be presented with the following

Click ‘Start’ and you will be presented with the following screen

Click Ok to change the password. The requirements for a highly secure password were removed when we created our Mater Virtual Machine, and are therefore still removed in MdcExchangeServer. So change the password to something simple and then click the blue arrow as shown below

Once you click the Blue arrow, the password will be updated and you will be shown the following screen

 

Click the ‘Ok’ button and you will be presented with the following

This ‘Initial Configuration Tasks’ screen should look familiar to you as we saw it earlier when we first setup our Base Machine.

Now there are a couple of items that we need to configure at this point before we can call our MdcExchangeServer Virtual Machine configured, the first of which is to configure networking

Click on ‘Configure Networking’ as shown below

You will now be taken to the ‘Network Connections’ screen. Right click on the icon which represents our connection to the Virtual Network and select ‘Properties’ from the popup menu as shown below

You will be presented with the ‘Local Area Connection Properties’ dialog. Highlight ‘Internet Protocol  Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)’ by clicking on it and then click the ’Properties’ button as shown below.

At this point you will be shown the ‘Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)’ dialog as shown below.

Now back in Part 5 of this series, I presented a table that contained the ranges of IP Addresses that we would be using for the various machines in our infrastructure. I have again shown this table below

 

Previously we setup MdcDc Virtual Machine and assigned it an IP Address of 192.168.20.200

Since MdcExchangeServer is a virtual machine and since it is the second virtual machine we have setup, let’s go ahead and use 192.168.20.201 as our IP Address.  

This network configuration step should be familiar to you as we have performed it previously when setting up our Base machine. 

Since we are now running a DNS Server, we can use the IP Address of our DNS Server for this network setup. The IP Address that we will be using is 192.168.20.200 which is the box where our DNS Server is running

Fill in the values as shown below and then click the ‘Ok’ button.

You will be taken back to the ‘Local Area Connection Properties’ dialog. Click the ’Close’ button as shown below.

You can now close the ‘Network Connections’ window that is shown below

Next we need to change the name of the virtual machine. You can do this my clicking on the ‘Provide computer name and domain’ link in the ‘Initial Configuration Tasks’ windows as shown below

 

In the ‘System Properties’ window, click the ‘Change’ button and change the name of the computer to ‘MdcExchange’. Next, change the’ Member of’ setting to ‘Domain’ and enter ‘mdc.com’ as the domain name, as shown below

Go ahead and click the ‘Ok’ button and you will be presented with the following.

What is happening here is that we are being asked for an account that has sufficient rights to allow our MdcExchangeServer computer to join the mdc.com domain. We can use the ‘Administrator’ account for this, so simply enter ‘Administrator’ and the password as shown below

 

Click the ‘Ok’ button and you will be presented with the following dialog

 

After you click the ‘Ok’ button on the welcome dialog, you will be presented with the following

 

Click the ‘Ok’ button. Then click the ‘Close’ button for the ‘System Properties’ dialog as shown below

When prompted click the ‘Restart Now’ button

The MdcExchangeServer Virtual Machine will now reboot. Once it has restarted we are presented with the following screen

By default, it is showing us the local account as the account to login with as shown below.

Previously we setup this new machine in Active Directory so let’s go ahead and log into the mdc.com domain.

Click on the ‘Switch User’ button and then click on ‘Other User’ as shown below

Enter ‘MDC\Administrator’ as the account name and then enter the password for the MDC\Administrator account and click the blue arrow as shown below.

 

Once the computer restarts we will again be presented with the ‘Initial Configuration Tasks’ screen.

From this point on we will not be need the ‘Initial Configuration Tasks’ screen to be shown when we first start our Virtual Machine, so put a check mark in the ‘Do not show this window at logon’ checkbox at the bottom of the screen. Lastly click on the ‘Close’ button as shown below.

And that’s all there is to it. We now have our MdcExchangeServer Virtual Machine all setup.

Again we see that the time we invested earlier in setting up a base Virtual Machine that could be cloned has saved us an enormous amount of time.

So that wraps it up for Part 15. Next time in Part 16, we will get busy installing Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 onto the MdcExchangeServer Virtual Machine

 

Thanks for reading