High purity alumina/stainless steel joints were produced by activated molybdenum -manganese route using 72Ag28Cu solder. The microstructure and elemental distribution of metallized ceramic were analyzed, and the mechanism of metallization was discussed. Influences of the metallizing technologic conditions, Ni plating and subsequent annealing on the joint shear strength were investigated. The results show that both glassy phases migration and chemical reaction act the key roles for activated Mo-Mn metallizing, but sintering of the metallized layer acts the secondary role, and the main direction of glass migration is from the metallzed layer to the ceramic matrix. The maximum of the joint shear strength under the optimized conditions reaches 115 MPa, and the average strength is over 97 MPa. A thin Ni coating will prevent the metallized layer from being wetted by the solder in resulting avoiding the erosion of the layer by the solder. The annealing after plating could improve markedly the strength of the ioints.