Migration from 5.0.18-32 to 7-64

[hewbert007]

Hello,

We're planning an upgrade from version 5.0.18-32bit to version 7(latest)-64-bit in the next couple of weeks.

From what I've gathered, this looks like it's going to be a tedious process. Am I correct that the following is essentially the steps involved here:

1. Install v6 (32-bit) on new system
2. Upgrade current system to v6 (32-bit)
3. Do a disaster recovery from current to new
4. Upgrade new from v6 32-bit to v6 64-bit
5. Upgrade new from v6 64-bit to v7 64-bit

I've got the "Disaster recovery" article bookmarked, as well as a 32-64bit migration article bookmarked. Any words of wisdom on such an upgrade path?

We're also planning on adding a mail exchanger to our network to pre-process mail before hitting the Zimbra server. One of these, the Zimbra server or the mail exchanger, will be virtualized and one will be physical. Any recommendations on which should be on what? The physical box will have quite a bit more resources available than a VM I'll have available. This is for ~500 users.

Thanks

[Cine.ZxCommunity]

Hello!

I think you could like ZeXtras Migration Tool..
It's a free tool for Zimbra-to-Zimbra migrations, and you would just need to upgrade your current server to 6.0.7+ 32bit (as ZxMig requires Zimbra 6.0.7 or older to work), install and configure your new Zimbra 7 64bit machine and use ZeXtras Migration Tool to transfer all the data.
You can find more informations in the ZxMig's Zimbra Gallery page.

As for the mail exchanger, why are you planning to set up one?


Have a Nice Day,

Cine - Community Manager - ZeXtras
www.zextras.com

[Hatrix]

Well, I would put the MTA machine (I suppose with mail exchanger you mean a Zimbra dual-server setup with one Mailbox store server and one Zimbra MTA Server in front of it). Even if you have another frontend mailserver in mind I would recommend the physical box for the Mailstore server as the I/O strain is much higher on the mailstore due to high activity in the Mailstore (messages) Indexstore (Lucene Message Indexes), MySQL (account and Message information), and LDAP (well, LDAP is not so I/O heavy than the other services, but it counts as well). If you are doing Backup to the same machine you will have to take it into account to.

Also I would recommend (if you haven't allready) a multi-spindle layout, like one Raid1 for Mysql, one Raid1 for Message (and/or Index) store, one Raid1 for OS. Amavis on tempfs, etc...

I as well will have to go in the near future from a 5.0.9 32bit to latest 7 64bit ... Not sure which route to take, but I will checkout this zextras migration tool.

best
Ray