Exchange Server

Tim Trabold · Guest

We are moving from a 2 node a/p e2k cluster to a 3 node a/a/p e2k3 cluster.
I have a few questions regarding the setting up of the 3 nodes.

How do I configure my nodes for failing over. How does it know which ones
are active? Where is this set?

Will it load share between the two active clusters? Can the datastores be
shared between the two active nodes. How do I need to set up Exchange?

Any help would be appreciated.

Tim Trabold
Systems Administrator
Farm Credit Services of America
(402) 348-3573
FAX (402) 661-3573
traboldt(remove this)@fcsamerica.com

Rodney R. Fournier [MVP] · Guest

Answers below:

"Tim Trabold" <TimTrabold@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:6598E259-28D4-46AB-8240-601B258B46FF@microsoft.com...

Tim Trabold · Guest

OK, I understand the round-robin effect of the configuration you have
recommended. I need a little clarification of what you mean by Exchange
Groups 1 & 2.

Are you talking Cluster group or Storage group?

If you mean a Cluster group does this mean that I will have / need n-1
Virtual Exchange 2003 servers or one for each active node of the cluster.

Or, do you mean that in addition to the default "First Storage Group" that I
need to add another group at the same level, under the virtual server?

Where is the preferreed owner set? I see one at the cluster group level,
so, I suspect this answers my above questions.

Here is how we are set up now. We would like to keep it as simple as
possible. Currently, we have a 2 node e2k cluster. There is one E2k virtual
server with a single "First Storage Group" with 4 - mailbox stores and our
public folders under it. These are all on the same drive partition &
sub-directory.

With the 3 node cluster do I need to split these up to different drive
partitions, with one set of say 2 mail stores under the "First Storage Group"
and the other 2 stores and public folders on a "Second Storage Group" (or
visa-versa). If that's correct, I expect that this means that I need to set
up another drive partition on our SAN to house the other "Second Storage
Group".

If this is wrong and the cluster group is what you are talking about then I
have a little thinking to do. If I need 2 virtual servers, how will it
handle name resolution for profile creation. Will the user always need to
know which virtual server they are on? We currently have a group policy
which handles this if users log into different PCs.

Is there any benefit to having each message store on separate SAN
partitions? We will be running E2k3 Enterprise.

Thanks for your help and advice.

"Rodney R. Fournier [MVP]" wrote:

Russ Kaufmann [MCT] · Guest

"Tim Trabold" <TimTrabold@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:E06C3C1E-1597-4E28-B815-AB54655CF207@microsoft.com...

Tim Trabold · Guest

Thanks for the help, it cleared some things up with multi node (>2)
clustering.

Here is what I have done. I created 5 separate LUNs, 1 for each of the two
data stores and the log files and another one for the quorum. There is a
minimum of SMTP traffic, so I didn't create separate drives for it. I am
more concerned about fault tolerance for the mail stores then internet mail
at this time.

I created 2 Exchange groups with different preferred servers. I installed
exchange on the third node but didn't assign it as a preferred server. I
assume that this is how the passive is assigned (nothing is on it, but the
other servers do failover to it). I also moved the cooresponding drive
groups to their correct server. Everything is working well, for the most
part. I moved a mailbox (mine) from our E2k server to it. It resolved my
mailbox from Outlook and I was able to get at mail. SMTP Internet e-mail out
and in also works.

I did have one problem. I can't get to my e-mail from OWA. We have OWA on
an e2k3 front end server and it works fine to mailboxes on our e2k cluster.
What am I missing. Is there a setting on the OWA server that I need to
create so that it can resolve to the new e2k3 cluster? I need to make it see
my mailbox on the new server. I thought it might be replication, but it has
been a few hours.

In explaination of my naming question, I was unclear because on our old
cluster we have always resolved using the name of the single exchange
instance. I didn't realize that it would resolve using the name of the
cluster itself, regardless of the number of nodes. I tested this on the old
servers and it worked either way. So that explained a lot for me.

I have an additional question regarding the cluster resources and quorum.
Which server should I make the preferred server to house the cluster
resources? Should I put them on the one which is the passive for the
exchange servers or should I put it on one of the servers which are the
preferred exchange servers and use the passive as the preferred failover for
everything.

Thanks again.

Tim Trabold

"Tim Trabold" wrote:

Tim Trabold · Guest

Does anyone have any ideas why my OWA isn't working?

"Tim Trabold" wrote:

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