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I have a client who uses a hosting provider for both their domain and web hosting.

They also use Microsoft Exchange Server for their email/calendars/contacts etc (as far as I know this is their own server in the office)

They are looking to host their website instead with myself which should be as easy as pointing the domain at my nameservers (using mediatemple).

The question I have is what do I do with the exchange server? As on all my other sites, email are just set up as forwarders to gmail accounts and the like. Is the exchange stuff done in a similar way? Looking for some info regarding this kind of thing so I can best advise my client and get the job moving along.

Thanks

Cameron
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Leave the email as it is. The only thing you need in order to host their web site is for them to point the A or CNAME record for their web site to your web server ip address. You do not need to and should not host their DNS or email unless you have specific experience doing that and the requisite infrastructure to do so.

This is a very common question from end users and "web hosters". Let me break it down:

  1. I can register a domain with any registrar I choose (Network Solutions for example).

  2. I can have another party (DynDNS for example) host the DNS zone for the domain.

  3. I can have another party (GoDaddy for example) host the web site for the domain.

  4. I can have yet another party (Google for example) host the email for the domain.

Or any combination of the above. Your hosting of their website does not require you to host their DNS, email or anything else.

joeqwerty
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  • Why do I need to edit the A or CNAME records? Can't I just edit the NS records? – Cameron Aug 29 '12 at 19:21
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    NS records tell DNS which servers are the authoritative Name Servers for the domain (which servers host the DNS zone for the domain). You're not hosting their DNS zone so you wouldn't change their NS records. You're hosting their web site. Right now they have something like this: an A record for www that points to 1.1.1.1 (so the FQDN of www.customer.com resolves to the ip address 1.1.1.1). Your web server ip address is 2.2.2.2, so you change their A record to resolve to (or point to, if you like that term better) 2.2.2.2 – joeqwerty Aug 29 '12 at 19:29