Hi I about to start testing Ex 2010 in a lab and have a couple of questions: 1. How do I replicate the send/receive of external email? As I have no MX records for my test lab I am unsure how to do this 2. Currently we have Ex 2007 in place in production (2 CAS/HT servers and 2 CCR clusters). We have 2 MX records. Both point to a single load balanced IP which then distributes the email between a cluster of spam filters (2 separate IP's at the backend in a slave-master config, only 1 is therefore filtering at any given time) - I dont think this is the optimal configuration. Should I remove the load balanced VIP (the load balancers are clustered) and point each MX to each of the spam filters? If you need further info please let me know Thanks in advance

Ans: 1: you can setup another site and external domain SMTP server and join your Exchange site using windows RRAS. You can also send email to your exchange server thru SMTP command from any external machine 2: Your VIP is working as load balance, mean it is fetching message equally to both spam filter, if you remove VIP then each MX will send to individual Spam filter and can be performance issue if you receive bulk message or any spam attack. Hope above info will help you !!!Anil

Hi Anil many thanks for your response. 1. Can you explain a little more pls? When you say another site do you mean another Exchange Org? 2. the load balanced VIP for our spam filters only sends email to one spam appliance as the type of spam filters we have work in master-slave mode (meaning 1 is active and the other is in standby mode) - do you still think this is the best config to have? Thanks again!

Ohh !!! You corrected me. 1: Yes 2: Then you can go ahead with your idea is its master slave model.Anil

Great, thanks for the help!