Exchange Server

wbielinski · Guest

ADSites & Services shows that I have three. Any ideas?

Paul Bowden [MSFT] · Guest

ExBPA is saying that although you may have more GCs in your topology, your
Exchange server can only utilize one of them. This may be caused by a number
of reasons including:

a. Your Exchange server is on a GC
b. Your other GCs are in different AD Sites
c. Your Exchange server is hard-coded to only use one GC
d. The other GCs in your topology have failed suitability tests for Exchange
and cannot be used.

Cheers,
--
Paul Bowden
Program Manager
Exchange Server Best Practices Analyzer
http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/analyzers

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

"wbielinski" <wbielinski@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:E1B23524-1B36-424A-951D-ED3BFEAE63ED@microsoft.com...
> ADSites & Services shows that I have three. Any ideas?

wbielinski · Guest

Yup, exchange is on a GC. Thanks

"Paul Bowden [MSFT]" wrote:

Rob Commarota · Guest

We have the same issue, but it only recently started happening. Seems to be
related to the latest exbpa update as we have not added or removed any global
catalogs.

1) Exchange is not a DC
2) We do have other DCs in other sites, but we also have a second DC in
this site. Domain A (parent) has a DC in this site and Domain B (Child &
Exchange location) has a DC in this site.
3) How do we check to see if Exchange is hard-coded to only use on GC?
4) How do we determine if other GCs have failed suitability tests?

Thanks,

Rob

"Paul Bowden [MSFT]" wrote:

Paul Bowden [MSFT] · Guest

Hi Rob,

Launch ESM, drill down to the Exchange server object, then go into
properties. There's a tab called 'Directory Access' which lists the three AD
roles: ConfigDC, DC and GC.

Cheers,

--
Paul Bowden
Program Manager
Exchange Server Best Practices Analyzer
http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/analyzers

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

"Rob Commarota" <RobCommarota@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:6D9E9483-4D26-4EF0-A5B8-7129AC743A71@microsoft.com...

Paul Bowden [MSFT] · Guest

Hi Rob,

To troubleshoot, you should increase diagnostics logging. Go into ESM, open
up the properties of the Exchange server object, then click on the
'Diagnostics Logging' tab. Set the 'MSExchangeDSAccess' -> 'Topology'
logging level to maximum. Give it 30 mins, then look in the application
event log - you should see a 2080 event.

The suitability tests are described in KB316300.

Cheers,

--
Paul Bowden
Program Manager
Exchange Server Best Practices Analyzer
http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/analyzers

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

"Rob Commarota" <RobCommarota@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:A52E1C78-863C-4E03-AAF2-2A26216BC976@microsoft.com...

Rob Commarota · Guest

Paul:

The Exchange container does exist in the root.

We have never seen this warning before installing the latest release of
EXPBA - was it a new check that was recently added?

In any case, this issue is odd and totally unexpected. I talked to a
colleague of mine who monitors our Exchange and he believes that he has seen
Exchange traverse our WAN for a GC on those few instances when the single GC
that it sees has gone down or been taken down.

This is not too problematic, but it is annoying because it is not the
behavior that I expect. There must be a cause, but I can't find it.

Thanks,

Rob

"Paul Bowden [MSFT]" wrote:

Paul Bowden [MSFT] · Guest

Hi Rob,

When the Exchange System Attendant starts, it runs a set of suitability
tests (there are approx 10 tests) against the Active Directory servers to
figure out whether it should use them. Is the root domain DomainPrep'd? A
quick way to tell is to see whether the 'Microsoft Exchange System Objects'
container exists in the root domain. If it's not there, then that's the
reason why the Exchange server is refusing to use the GC from the root.

Cheers,

--
Paul Bowden
Program Manager
Exchange Server Best Practices Analyzer
http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/analyzers

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

"Rob Commarota" <RobCommarota@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:5D4537B2-C828-4500-A173-DAE39CCF5CAC@microsoft.com...

Rob Commarota · Guest

Paul:

We checked this and everything says "AUTO", but still only one GC appears
even though there are definitely two at this site (though in different
domains as I mentioned earlier). We have an empty root domain and a child to
that root that has all accounts and resources. I am at a loss for why
Exchange is unable to see that we have two GCs at this site. I have run
"dsquery server –site SITENAME -isgc" and I get both GCs at the site back
from this query.

How does Exchange query for the GCs? Should I have a closer look at our DNS
structure to ensure that all the information that Exchange needs is published
there?

We seem to have eliminated answers 1-3 from your possibilities. How do we
check #4.

Also, I ran across the MS article "PDC emulator is not excluded from
DSAccess topology" and wonder if this could be part of the issue. The PDC
emulator is indeed the second GC that we expect to see on Exchange but do
not. However, the issue discussed in the related articles applied to EX2000
and we have EX2003.

Thanks again,

Rob

"Paul Bowden [MSFT]" wrote:

Rob Commarota · Guest

Paul:

Thanks for all your help on this. I think i found my answer. In Chapter 3
of the Exchange Server Technical Reference Guide, the suitability tests are
discussed. There are several "Hard" tests and a handful of "Soft" tests that
Exchange performs in order to determine suitability. Among the soft tests
are:

• FSMO primary domain controller role owner If your topology contains
servers running Windows NT® Server, the directory server with the flexible
single master operation (FSMO) primary domain controller (PDC) role will
experience heavy loads, making it a less than ideal candidate for use by
Exchange Server 2003. For this reason, DSAccess performs a soft suitability
test to locate the PDC FSMO role owner, so that it can remove it from the
list of suitable directory servers.

Though we do not have an servers below 2003 running, the PDC emulator exists
and is discovered and subsequently eliminated by Exchange. Our solution
appears to be the addition of a manual entry for that GC.

Perhaps MS will add an additional check for Exchange's soft tests which
includeds a test for the domain and/or forest functional level. If it is
2003 or higher, then a PDC emulator could still be selected as a GC.

Thanks again for your help.

Rob

"Paul Bowden [MSFT]" wrote:

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