Last week, the Exchange team released what they called the “Exchange 2010 datacenter switchover tool” (note that the title mentions troubleshooter). The tool could prove helpful to some and can be insightful to others.

While I applaud any effort put in to minimize risks and the possibility of human error, especially in stressful situations like data center switchovers, I do have some suggestions for improvement.

First, the name. A “tool” might imply it’s something to aid in the switchover process, while in fact it’s more of an interactive decision maker or guide walking you through the process and can be utilized to practice dry runs or test formalized procedures.

That brings me to my second point, which is the format. A process like a data center switchover with all its decision moments is perhaps better translated to a flow chart rather than an interactive PowerPoint slide deck, which looks good on screen but can’t be printed. Also, a PDF or XPS might be more convenient; not everyone has PowerPoint at hand all the time, especially when working remotely on servers.

Finally, the contents is almost taken directly from the original Technet data center switchover article here, with the same questions and steps. It could perhaps be turned in a more valuable tool if it could read the environment and tailor questions based on what it discovers.

You can check out the “troubleshooter” yourself by downloading it here. Of course, this is only the first version; I suggest you leave feedback and suggestions on how to improve the tool in the accompanying article on the Exchange Team blog here.

Update October, 24th:UC Architects fellow Serkan Varoglu created a Exchange Data Center Switchover workflow diagram; you can download it here.