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Thread: Question about exchange design

  1. #1
    Douglas Guest

    Question about exchange design

    Our company is a small business with 90 PCs and five servers. We used to
    run on MS SBS 2003 and did the transition pack to get past the 75PC limit.
    We have the following servers in our office computer room.

    SERVER1 was the SBS box. It currently serves as the file server and runs
    Exchange 2003 Standard edition. We are around 13GB on our Exchange store.
    SERVER2 is our application server.
    SERVER3 is a Terminal Server
    SERVER4 is a Terminal Server

    We have opened a branch office in CA that currently is connected to our main
    office in Houston through a Point-Point T1. We have a mix of 15 PCs and 10
    thin clients in that office along with a server, SERVER5, that is setup as a
    DC.

    We are exploring the right steps to take in enhancing and upgrading our
    messaging system. We are looking at the following idea and I was hoping
    someone could let me know if it can be done.

    Now that we have remote users outside the office that need connectivity, we
    need to be able to keep functioning in the event of a power failure or
    building disaster. We have decided to lease a cabinet at a local
    datacenter. The cabinet comes with 10Mbps of bandwidth. I am going to
    create a site-site VPN between the cabinet and our Houston office. I am
    going to use Replication Exec from Veritas to replicate critical data real
    time between the Houston office and a file server I will house in the
    datacenter. I would also like to place an Exchange Enterprise box in the
    datacenter and migrate the users off of SERVER1 and onto the new Exchange
    box. I will change the MX record and have mail point to the server in the
    datacenter, that much I understand.

    Would it make sense to have an exchange server in Houston as well as one in
    the DataCenter? Our users are getting irritated by the size limits of the
    Exchange store in Houston, so we need to deploy something quickly.

    Any advise is so greatly appreciated, you have no idea!

    -Douglas

  2. #2
    Douglas McIver Guest
    Thanks for the reply Scott.

    The company is opening another office in the Houston area later this year.
    My thought is that we will setup a VPN between that location and the
    datacenter. We will then use that site in the event of a disaster.

    Would it make sense then to put a DC and an Exchange box in the datacenter
    network?

    Thanks!
    -Douglas
    "ScottM" <ScottM@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
    news:58097D0C-6D88-4952-9449-40AE1ABC66E4@microsoft.com...
    Douglas:

    It sounds like the company is trying to get a business continuance plan
    going, and you're halfway there. Where will people sit if there is a
    disaster? Where is the DC that will need to run the Exchange box in the
    event that the building is destroyed?

    If the main worry is power outages, then a robust UPS solution would take
    care of it, and you could still keep your Exchange server locally.

    One thing you could do is keep your Exchange box locally, and back it up
    to
    the off site location regularly, either with a third party solution or via
    the Shadow copy service.

    If you do decide to move your Exchange box to your offsite location, then
    it
    really doesn't make sense to keep one locally as well.

    -Just my 2 cents.

    ScottM




    "Douglas" wrote:

    Our company is a small business with 90 PCs and five servers. We used to
    run on MS SBS 2003 and did the transition pack to get past the 75PC
    limit.
    We have the following servers in our office computer room.

    SERVER1 was the SBS box. It currently serves as the file server and runs
    Exchange 2003 Standard edition. We are around 13GB on our Exchange
    store.
    SERVER2 is our application server.
    SERVER3 is a Terminal Server
    SERVER4 is a Terminal Server

    We have opened a branch office in CA that currently is connected to our
    main
    office in Houston through a Point-Point T1. We have a mix of 15 PCs and
    10
    thin clients in that office along with a server, SERVER5, that is setup
    as a
    DC.

    We are exploring the right steps to take in enhancing and upgrading our
    messaging system. We are looking at the following idea and I was hoping
    someone could let me know if it can be done.

    Now that we have remote users outside the office that need connectivity,
    we
    need to be able to keep functioning in the event of a power failure or
    building disaster. We have decided to lease a cabinet at a local
    datacenter. The cabinet comes with 10Mbps of bandwidth. I am going to
    create a site-site VPN between the cabinet and our Houston office. I am
    going to use Replication Exec from Veritas to replicate critical data
    real
    time between the Houston office and a file server I will house in the
    datacenter. I would also like to place an Exchange Enterprise box in the
    datacenter and migrate the users off of SERVER1 and onto the new Exchange
    box. I will change the MX record and have mail point to the server in
    the
    datacenter, that much I understand.

    Would it make sense to have an exchange server in Houston as well as one
    in
    the DataCenter? Our users are getting irritated by the size limits of
    the
    Exchange store in Houston, so we need to deploy something quickly.

    Any advise is so greatly appreciated, you have no idea!

    -Douglas


  3. #3
    ScottM Guest
    Douglas:

    Yes, it would make sense to do that. I guess my only problem would be that
    if there is a problem, you'd need to travel to the offsite location. I would
    also make sure that the local DC is a Global catalog. It might also be wise
    to move some of the FSMO roles to the offsite DC as well.

    ScottM




    "Douglas McIver" wrote:

    Thanks for the reply Scott.

    The company is opening another office in the Houston area later this year.
    My thought is that we will setup a VPN between that location and the
    datacenter. We will then use that site in the event of a disaster.

    Would it make sense then to put a DC and an Exchange box in the datacenter
    network?

    Thanks!
    -Douglas
    "ScottM" <ScottM@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
    news:58097D0C-6D88-4952-9449-40AE1ABC66E4@microsoft.com...
    Douglas:

    It sounds like the company is trying to get a business continuance plan
    going, and you're halfway there. Where will people sit if there is a
    disaster? Where is the DC that will need to run the Exchange box in the
    event that the building is destroyed?

    If the main worry is power outages, then a robust UPS solution would take
    care of it, and you could still keep your Exchange server locally.

    One thing you could do is keep your Exchange box locally, and back it up
    to
    the off site location regularly, either with a third party solution or via
    the Shadow copy service.

    If you do decide to move your Exchange box to your offsite location, then
    it
    really doesn't make sense to keep one locally as well.

    -Just my 2 cents.

    ScottM




    "Douglas" wrote:

    Our company is a small business with 90 PCs and five servers. We used to
    run on MS SBS 2003 and did the transition pack to get past the 75PC
    limit.
    We have the following servers in our office computer room.

    SERVER1 was the SBS box. It currently serves as the file server and runs
    Exchange 2003 Standard edition. We are around 13GB on our Exchange
    store.
    SERVER2 is our application server.
    SERVER3 is a Terminal Server
    SERVER4 is a Terminal Server

    We have opened a branch office in CA that currently is connected to our
    main
    office in Houston through a Point-Point T1. We have a mix of 15 PCs and
    10
    thin clients in that office along with a server, SERVER5, that is setup
    as a
    DC.

    We are exploring the right steps to take in enhancing and upgrading our
    messaging system. We are looking at the following idea and I was hoping
    someone could let me know if it can be done.

    Now that we have remote users outside the office that need connectivity,
    we
    need to be able to keep functioning in the event of a power failure or
    building disaster. We have decided to lease a cabinet at a local
    datacenter. The cabinet comes with 10Mbps of bandwidth. I am going to
    create a site-site VPN between the cabinet and our Houston office. I am
    going to use Replication Exec from Veritas to replicate critical data
    real
    time between the Houston office and a file server I will house in the
    datacenter. I would also like to place an Exchange Enterprise box in the
    datacenter and migrate the users off of SERVER1 and onto the new Exchange
    box. I will change the MX record and have mail point to the server in
    the
    datacenter, that much I understand.

    Would it make sense to have an exchange server in Houston as well as one
    in
    the DataCenter? Our users are getting irritated by the size limits of
    the
    Exchange store in Houston, so we need to deploy something quickly.

    Any advise is so greatly appreciated, you have no idea!

    -Douglas





  4. #4
    ScottM Guest
    Douglas:

    It sounds like the company is trying to get a business continuance plan
    going, and you're halfway there. Where will people sit if there is a
    disaster? Where is the DC that will need to run the Exchange box in the
    event that the building is destroyed?

    If the main worry is power outages, then a robust UPS solution would take
    care of it, and you could still keep your Exchange server locally.

    One thing you could do is keep your Exchange box locally, and back it up to
    the off site location regularly, either with a third party solution or via
    the Shadow copy service.

    If you do decide to move your Exchange box to your offsite location, then it
    really doesn't make sense to keep one locally as well.

    -Just my 2 cents.

    ScottM




    "Douglas" wrote:

    Our company is a small business with 90 PCs and five servers. We used to
    run on MS SBS 2003 and did the transition pack to get past the 75PC limit.
    We have the following servers in our office computer room.

    SERVER1 was the SBS box. It currently serves as the file server and runs
    Exchange 2003 Standard edition. We are around 13GB on our Exchange store.
    SERVER2 is our application server.
    SERVER3 is a Terminal Server
    SERVER4 is a Terminal Server

    We have opened a branch office in CA that currently is connected to our main
    office in Houston through a Point-Point T1. We have a mix of 15 PCs and 10
    thin clients in that office along with a server, SERVER5, that is setup as a
    DC.

    We are exploring the right steps to take in enhancing and upgrading our
    messaging system. We are looking at the following idea and I was hoping
    someone could let me know if it can be done.

    Now that we have remote users outside the office that need connectivity, we
    need to be able to keep functioning in the event of a power failure or
    building disaster. We have decided to lease a cabinet at a local
    datacenter. The cabinet comes with 10Mbps of bandwidth. I am going to
    create a site-site VPN between the cabinet and our Houston office. I am
    going to use Replication Exec from Veritas to replicate critical data real
    time between the Houston office and a file server I will house in the
    datacenter. I would also like to place an Exchange Enterprise box in the
    datacenter and migrate the users off of SERVER1 and onto the new Exchange
    box. I will change the MX record and have mail point to the server in the
    datacenter, that much I understand.

    Would it make sense to have an exchange server in Houston as well as one in
    the DataCenter? Our users are getting irritated by the size limits of the
    Exchange store in Houston, so we need to deploy something quickly.

    Any advise is so greatly appreciated, you have no idea!

    -Douglas


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